SpaceX’s global Starlink broadband network is currently listed as finally coming to the poorly served Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory, sometime in what’s left of 2025. Starlink’ activity map currently says “available now” for the Islands.

The bad news, however, is that the service is already being used by hundreds of local customers who use Starlink’s ‘Roaming’ package, and that SpaceX has reportedly started to cut them off. The problem is that SURE has an absolute monopoly until the Falklands Islands Government formally authorises Starlink.

The Islands have about 3700 people living and working but they are obliged to use a monopoly service, SURE (Sure Falkland Islands) for mobile telephone and hugely expensive broadband. Fees for a 10Mb/s ProXL package (capped at 365 GB) costs £467 per month.

SURE is owned by Bahrain’s Batelco telco which provides similar services to the Ascension Island and St Helena, all in the South Atlantic.

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Categories: Articles, Broadband, Satellite

Tags: falklands, starlink