Almost a year ago we echoed the imminent arrival in Spain, in “beta mode”, of Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, Elon Musk’s aerospace company. According to its website, Starlink would be “available to a limited number of users for each coverage area.”
However, Starlink would not finally receive your first authorization to use public domain radio spectrum frequencies until June 2021: this allowed the use of a range of frequencies that enabled communication between the satellites and the three base stations on the ground that control them and provide access to the Internet.
At that time, Starlink still needed to obtain two other permissions to access the range of frequencies that allowed two-way communication with end users. But, at the prospect of having to pay the spectrum fee for a full year mid-year, SpaceX decided delay your application until 2022.
The cost of the CNMC license makes the final service more expensive, according to Starlink
And, finally, on January 4, the company received this authorization, effective for the entire national territory for a period of 5 years. And now it is once again possible for Spanish users to book the Starlink service from their website, in conditions very similar to those in the US … but also somewhat more expensive.
The prices that Starlink advanced for Spain in 2021 already showed an extra cost of € 60 for the “shipping and handling” of the equipment, one that US users did not face. Now, with its final landing in 2022, we see that the ‘budget’ offered by its website to potential clients adds a new expense, now monthly, of € 9 as a “regulatory fee”.
Starlink has blamed the inclusion of this new item on the National Markets and Competition Commission: “the CNMC imposes a significant license cost to be able to access the electromagnetic spectrum necessary to provide this service.”
Price and speeds
The company has already begun to notify people who had paid the € 99 to reserve the service in 2021, and in turn allows us to join the queue of future clients from your website and for the same amount.
In the next few months, once the team comes to us (€ 499.00 for the material and € 60 for the shipping) and let’s install it ourselves, we can enjoy this satellite Internet service by € 99 / month (plus the aforementioned ‘regulatory fee’ of € 9).
As explained from Starlink, users will get 100-200 Mb / s download speeds for the next few months as SpaceX launches more satellites into space and the service “improves dramatically”, although it warns that during that time they will face “short periods of no connectivity.”