Brazil: Elon Musk’s Starlink program to bring internet to Amazon, says minister

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Tesla founder Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, is expected to come to Brazil “soon” to negotiate bringing the Internet to rural schools and indigenous communities. A satellite monitoring service for the Amazon should also be established, Communications Minister Fábio Faria said Tuesday (16) via his social media.

Faria met with the businessman in Texas on the evening of Monday, Dec. 15. Shortly before, he had spoken about the matter with the president of SpaceX, a company in the space industry, Gwynne Shotwell.

The idea is to connect remote locations and the Amazon through satellite receiving kits developed under SpaceX’s Starlink program. The company has launched a mega-constellation of low-cost satellites that offer high-speed Internet – there are currently more than 1,700 units in orbit. The goal is to reach 30,000.

SpaceX has competitors such as the British company OneWeb, which the minister spoke with on Nov. 11 in Glasgow, Scotland, during the COP26 global climate conference. OneWeb has already launched more than 350 satellites into low orbit.

Another player in this market is Amazon, which plans to put 3,200 satellites into orbit as part of the Kuiper project to provide Internet to rural communities and remote locations.