An official said Wednesday that the Philippines wants to include Elon Musk’s Starlink in its free Wi-Fi program. This could help the billionaire’s high-speed satellite internet business in the country make more money.
At a media briefing, SpaceX’s senior manager for government relations, Rebecca Hunter,
said that Starlink is working on a commercial launch in the Philippines by December.
This would be the company’s first rollout in Southeast Asia. The Philippines is a country where people always complain about how slow the internet is.
But Ivan John Uy, the Philippines’ new information and communications technology secretary,
said that the government may buy Starlink services as part of the state’s free internet program. This would be in line with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s plan to digitally link the archipelago.
Uy said that telecom companies haven’t invested in remote areas because it’s not possible,
but these places might not be able to pay for Starlink’s service, either.
“So, the government will have to step in, and we do have the money,” Uy said at a news conference with Hunter. “We will work with the local governments to figure out how to set up the equipment and how to connect it, and we will also look into how this can be done every year.”
But couldn’t give an estimate of how much the plan would cost right away,
and he said that Starlink would have to follow the legal process for getting contracts
in order to take part in the program.
He said that other companies with technologies similar to those of the government have sent proposals to the government.
Hunter said that Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency satellite internet has download speeds of between 100 and 200 megabits per second.
In May, Philippine regulators gave Starlink permission to enter the country. The company said this was made possible by a new law that lets full foreign ownership in the telecoms sector.
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