Those wanting to try out the services of Starlink may not need to wait any longer, as CEO Elon Musk confirmed in a keynote ay MWC that Starlink is slated for a global rollout by August this year.

All 72 orbital planes activate in August, plus many other improvements, enabling global coverage, except for polar regions, which will take another 6 months

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 25, 2021

Starlink is currently operational in 12 countries, where it has over 69,000 users and more than 1500 satellites operational. Aimed to reach out to “the most difficult-to-reach 3%, possibly 5%” of the global population, Musk elaborates that Starlink is a bridge between 5G and fiber, ensuring everyone in the world is connected to the internet. Musk is pretty ambitous with Starlink, as he aims to reach 500,000 users within 12 months.

With all the upgrades made to the current infrastructure of Starlink–Musk said that all 72 orbital planes will be activated by August in time for the global rollout–the CEO of Starlink expects speeds to be faster and latency to be lower as well. With that in mind, Starlink will soon be able to rival the existing speeds of 5G and fiber and become a viable internet connection alternative.

On the topic of possibly bringing Starlink to the Philippines, Converge did confirm early this year that they are in talks with Starlink in bringing the latter’s internet services to our shores. In an interview with ANC, CEO Dennis Anthony Uy explained that bringing Starlink to the Philippines will help in expanding their coverage in the Philippines–especially in areas where fiber technology is not possible.

Part of Converge’s plan is to expand its reach to 55% of residential households in the country, especially in the Visayas and Mindanao region. “We continue to look for new technologies to bring high-speed internet service to Filipinos, which is including SpaceX’s Starlink,” Uy added.