Opinion – Ronaldo Lemos: How much does Starlink’s internet cost?

Last week, Brazil received a visit from Elon Musk. The billionaire announced on Twitter that he will launch the Starlink service in the Amazon, covering “19,000 unconnected schools in the region”. If true, it’s good news. Low-orbit satellite technology is in fact one of the most promising and inexpensive ways to connect vast and sparsely populated geographic regions, such as the Amazon.

However, looking at the company’s website, today there is no service available in the region. The portal says it will be available in the Amazon region at the end of 2023. Today, the service can be used in a swath of the country that goes from Santa Catarina to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. But how does it work and how much does the Starlink connection cost?

Operation is relatively simple. Through the company’s website, the user can order a satellite dish and an access terminal. The cost for delivery in São Paulo today is R$5,138, including taxes. From the acquisition, the user has to pay R$ 530 per month for the connection. The antenna must be installed in a location that has a clear view of the sky. The connection speed is around 100 Mbps, with also relatively low latency.

Starlink intends to launch 42,000 satellites to offer the service globally. There are currently 2,400 satellites launched. Each weighs about 290 pounds. The company is not alone in providing this type of service. Other competitors include the company OneWeb, Astranis and Amazon itself, which has plans to launch its own constellation.

The service model has also generated controversy. One of them is the concern that these constellations in low orbit (about 550 km) could interfere with the signal of satellites in higher orbits, especially the geostationary ones. The BrasilSat A1, for example, is in orbit at about 35 thousand kilometers.

Another concern was raised by NASA, that the brightness of these satellites at low altitude could ruin the possibilities of space observation from Earth, since they interfere with astronomical equipment.

The geopolitical impact is another key issue. These massive arrays of satellites occupy two scarce resources: orbits and radio frequencies. Orbits are managed by the UN Office of Space Affairs. Radio frequencies are managed by the International Telecommunication Union, also of the UN, together with the countries.

The potential for conflict in these areas is extraordinary. China recently claimed it had to maneuver the TianHe space station to avoid collision with one of Starlink’s satellites, prompting a formal complaint at the UN.

In addition, these constellations are capable of monitoring the Earth’s surface in real time, analyzing military, political and economic data (for example, predicting whether a country’s agricultural crop will be promising or not). In this sense, countries like India are studying creating laws to regulate this type of data collection, called “non-personal”, establishing local sovereignty rules for this form of global analysis.

We will still travel a lot in the challenges that this new space race will bring.

READER

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Already5G establishing obligations to connect public schools in Brazil to the internet
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