The Financial Times reports that the UK will begin trialling Elon Musk’s Starlink technology in its first test of web-linked satellites to help meet the government’s ambition of providing ultrafast internet to all homes across the country  

The first Starlink satellites will be deployed to provide connectivity to a few specific isolated sites, including a 12th-century abbey in the North York Moors National Park, and rescue operations in the Lake District and Snowdonia National Park, according to a government announcement on Wednesday.

The government has opted to use Starlink, a satellite constellation operated by the billionaire entrepreneur’s SpaceX company, instead of the British satellite broadband pioneer OneWeb, which it rescued from bankruptcy in 2020 with a controversial $500mn investment.  

As governments around the world grapple with how to provide ultrafast broadband connectivity to their populations in rural and geographically hard to reach places, several have opted to deploy satellites instead of making the costly investment to expand their terrestrial fibre networks.

The announcement is an early indication that prime minister Rishi Sunak’s government is looking seriously at ways to improve access to fast and reliable internet to tackle the digital divide, and reach its goal of delivering gigabit-capable broadband infrastructure to 99 per cent of premises by 2030.

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The Financial Times - UK to deploy Elon Musk’s Starlink in first test of satellite for rural connectivity
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