The British government has designated Starlink for another test equip the most remote homes and businesses with high-speed Internet access. The UK’s aim is to improve overall connectivity to ensure the entire population receives reliable coverage. An interesting project for Elon Musk’s company as it fulfills its desire to provide high-speed Internet access worldwide.
A project that is part of the government’s plans
The test involves sending more than 3,000 satellites in low earth orbit to see how they can help cover a dozen places” very difficult to reach “. The test will be tested on first three remote locations : 12th-century Rievaulx Abbey in the North York Moors National Park, Wasdale Head in the Lake District and Snowdonia National Park.
This unit is part of £5 billion Gigabit project which is a government initiative aims to remove “notspots”, i.e. places where the internet is not available. The state thinks so satellite broadband is an attractive option when the operators cannot install the cables, for example. However, this alternative is the most expensive for consumers.
The British government believes that satellites can “ be the answer to the connection between isolated places “. Michelle Donelan, digital secretary said that ” these trials aim to find a solution to the prohibitive cost of installing cables in remote locations “. In fact, satellites can provide internet speeds of up to 200 megabits per second (mbps) in many places, that’s four times faster than the current Anglo-Saxon average, which is approaching 50mbpsstated the Institute for Digital, Culture, Media and Sports.
The size of the project with Starlink is not known
Recently, during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Elon Musk supported Ukrainians by providing free satellite dishes to allow local people access to the Starlink Internet network. However, the American billionaire said he could not fund Starlink indefinitely. Operating costs will reach nearly $100 billion by the end of the year.
As regards the British Government, the amount of this project with Starlink is not known. Since 2020, the service that has enabled businesses and individuals to connect to the Internet in Europe costs 90 euros per month for the subscription and 500 euros for equipment. Lately, Starlink has been doing it decided to halve the subscription fees, which affected the number of subscribers to the service according to Gwyne Shotwell, Chief Operating Officer at SpaceX.
But this choice has something surprising, The UK did not want to cooperate with OneWeb. The latter, like Starlink, a satellite broadband company where the British to save it from bankruptcy, has invested more than $500 million. The government has indicated this prefer to choose technology that is available and ready to use “. Actual outbreak of war in Ukraine put an end to the plans of OneWeb, which can no longer cooperate with Russia. It was therefore SpaceX that approached the British company to let it send its satellites into orbit.