Elon Musk's ambitious satellite internet venture, Starlink, suffered a significant global service disruption on Tuesday, leaving thousands of users without connectivity for more than an hour.
According to data from the outage tracking website Downdetector, user reports of problems began to surge just after 16:00 GMT. The issues appeared to affect customers across the globe, with significant concentrations of reports coming from the UK, Europe, and the Americas.
Service Restored After Widespread Disruption
The service interruption, which lasted for approximately 70 minutes, impacted users' ability to access the internet through the satellite network. Starlink's official status page initially acknowledged the problem, stating users were "experiencing a network issue".
By 17:10 GMT, the company updated its status page to confirm that services had been restored. The brief message simply read: "Service restored." The company has not yet provided a detailed explanation for what caused the widespread network failure.
User Reactions and Market Impact
Social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), quickly filled with complaints and concerns from frustrated users reliant on the service for work, communication, and in remote areas where Starlink is the primary internet option.
This outage represents a notable stumble for the satellite internet provider, which has been aggressively expanding its global coverage and user base. The company, a division of Musk's SpaceX, currently operates a constellation of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.
Such widespread disruptions, while rare, highlight the potential vulnerabilities of relying on a single, centralized satellite network for critical internet infrastructure. Industry analysts will be watching closely for Starlink's official root cause analysis of the event.
