In January 2015, Musk unveiled plans to blanket the Earth with high-speed wireless Internet using a vast network of communications satellites launched into low earth orbit.
The still-unnamed plan, known currently as “space Internet,” would launch an estimated 4,000 satellites into space with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Using a network of satellites would allow the technology to beam wireless Internet across a much larger swath of the earth than currently available fiber networks or communications satellites that sit much higher above the Earth.
The effort resembles similar plans by other Silicon Valley giants. Google is exploring using high-altitude balloons to provide high-speed Internet to people in rural and remote areas, while Facebook unveiled a plan earlier this year to use satellites to connect people in Africa.
Musk argues the space Internet plan has additional benefits, such as improving the speed for all users hoping to do more bandwidth-intensive activities – using Skype and online gaming, for example, that are currently hampered by the distance electromagnetic signals have to travel from existing satellites.
Because of the vast network of satellites, the project would rival the faster speeds of fiber optic networks while providing access for the approximately 3 billion people without Internet around the world.
“Our focus is on creating a global communications system that would be larger than anything that has been talked about to date,” he told Businessweek in January 2015.
In June 2015, Musk appealed to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to begin testing low-level satellites in orbit.
But so far, his plan – which resembles a similar effort by Bill Gates in the 1990s – has sparked opposition from other satellite makers and backers of competing proposals, who question if Musk has access to the wireless spectrum he would need to create the satellite network. As with other efforts backed by the tech entrepreneur, Musk has said he plans to keep the manufacturing in-house, but he could eventually see SpaceX making satellites for other companies.
There's also the issue of cost. Musk has put the price tag at $10 billion, saying the ultimate goal of space Internet is to help further another long-time ambition: colonizing Mars.
“I think this needs to be done, and I don’t see anyone else doing it," he told Businessweek. "We see it as a long-term revenue source for SpaceX to be able to fund a city on Mars.”
