Well that is orders of magnitude faster than I expected. Didn't they just get FCC approval?

Rumour is the satellites are mostly non-functional.

They are apparantly lacking 2 out of 4 antenna, and don't have the inter satellite laser links. Some might just be dumb mass simulators.

It would be very hard to turn that into any kind of commercial service.

I'd say it's more a test of the satellite deployment system and an attempt at removing risk from the remainder of the project.

Not just a rumour, it's mentioned in the article:

> This group of spacecraft will have no inter-satellite laser (optical) links, a feature that would transform an orbiting Starlink constellation into a vast mesh network. According to FCC filings, the first 75 satellites will be of the partial-prototype variety, followed soon after by the first spacecraft with a more or less finalized design and a full complement of hardware.

Yeah it would stink if they launched a bunch of high value communication satellites and found out that the station keeping didn't work =/