MANILA, Philippines — The much anticipated entry of Elon Musk’s Starlink will have to wait until next year due to delays in the production and launch of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites into space.
Information Assistant Secretary Philip Varilla told reporters that the scheduled entry of Starlink in the Philippine market by December was moved to the first semester of 2023.
Despite the postponement, Varilla said the government would stick with its plan to tap Starlink as the internet provider for Filipinos in remote areas.
“Starlink will be operational here in the Philippines by the middle of next year. What we intend to do is to connect geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas, those that are really far from our telecommunications infrastructure so that they will be connected to the internet,” Varilla said.
“I think the delay in Starlink’s entry is because of the 4,400 satellites that they are launching. It is difficult to launch that many satellites, but they’re saying that they can complete it and they can service the Philippines by that time,” he said.
Starlink, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, deploys LEO satellites into the space to beam Internet to the surface, making its services available everywhere, even in far-flung locations.
In July, SpaceX senior manager for government affairs Rebecca Hunter announced that the firm would start selling Starlink dishes in the Philippines by as early as December.
Musk’s internet from space business offers the equipment at $599 per unit, while its connectivity service goes for $99 per month.
As such, the government plans to shoulder the cost of connecting residents in remote areas to Starlink, but will eventually pass on the expenses to the community once their collective income goes up. Starlink can extend a download speed of 200 Mbps with latency of just 20 ms.
Varilla said the government has no plans yet of talking with other satellite providers like Starlink. Local telcos, for one, are starting to explore the viability of space-based connectivity to compete with the technology promoted by Starlink.
Pangilinan-led Smart Communications Inc. in August tapped Washington-based Omnispace to look into the possibility of providing space-based 5G connectivity to Smart subscribers.