[NelsonMinar]

I believe the constellation is about 90-95% complete now. The first shell at least. There's plans for more shells but that's for redundancy, not coverage.

[mastax]

I was going to comment about how surprised I was that they almost finished the first shell without deploying laser links but apparently they have: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/space...

[scrumbledober]

I think the laser interlinks are proving more difficult than SpaceX anticipated. I had expected them much earlier in the deployment than now, and it seems they are currently only planning them for polar orbits.

[sebzim4500]

I think they need quite a lot of satellites in polar orbits to get coverage at the poles, and they have barely launched any yet. They are close to 100% coverage of the rest of the world already though.

[NelsonMinar]

They're doing polar launches but compared to the number of customers in sub-70 latitudes it's a pretty small market.

[dylan604]

Well, 9/10 is still a fraction, just not as small as I thought it was. ;-) I must have fallen behind on launches, not realizing they were this far along.

[s1artibartfast]

That is a lot redundancy. Current satellite count is around 1,600, and FCC approved plans through phase 2 would bring that up to ~12,000