Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system will take part in a trial to provide high-speed internet connectivity to homes and businesses in some of the most remote places in the UK.
The tests will help show whether the low-orbit satellite constellation founded by the Tesla CEO and new Twitter owner could help the UK government meet its aims of providing ultrafast internet throughout the country.
The initial tests will involve three remote locations in England and Wales.
These were the 12th-Century Rievaulx Abbey, which is located in North York Moors National Park, Wasdale Head in the Lake District, and sites including an outdoor activity centre inside Snowdonia National Park.
The Starlink system uses a network of satellites – currently standing at around 3,000 although more launches are planned – that beam their signals back down to Earth.
Receiver devices are required on the ground, but connectivity can be provided without the major infrastructure usually required.
Specifically, satellite-based internet systems do not need miles of cables to reach homes and businesses in remote areas.
Starlink could be four times faster than current average speeds
According to a spokesperson from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, previous tests have shown that Starlink can deliver broadbands speeds of up to 200 megabits a second (Mbps).
This is four times faster than the average of 50Mbps currently available across the UK.
Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said that high-speed connectivity beamed from space could be the answer for UK premises “stuck in the digital slow lane”.
Starlink currently provides internet coverage to hundreds of thousands of users in around 40 countries.
As well as remote areas, the system can be deployed in places where existing infrastructure has been damaged.
Most notably with Starlink, this has included providing internet coverage in parts of war-torn Ukraine, but satellite internet can also be valuable in locations that have experienced a natural disaster.
The announcement of Starlink’s involvement in the project, which is part of the UK government's £5bn Project Gigabit initiative, is a blow for the UK-based satellite internet company OneWeb.
The government injected £400 million of taxpayers’ money into the company to save it from bankruptcy just two years ago.
It said its decision was going with the technology that was "available and ready" to use.
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