Here comes a new chal­lenger.

Star­link has of­fi­cial­ly en­tered the ring, of­fer­ing in­ter­net ser­vices to T&T.

To say the Elon Musk-owned, satel­lite-pow­ered in­ter­net ser­vice provider is un­like most of its con­tem­po­raries in the lo­cal mar­ket would be an un­der­state­ment.

The com­pa­ny brands it­self as in­ter­net from Space for hu­mans on earth, yet Star­link’s of­fi­cial ar­rival in this coun­try, while her­ald­ed by me­dia re­ports for some time, was un­der­stat­ed.

The soli­tary pub­lic an­nounce­ment that the ser­vice was avail­able came from the com­pa­ny’s Twit­ter page via an eight-word tweet, “Star­link is now avail­able in T&T” punc­tu­at­ed by a satel­lite emo­ji, a T&T flag emo­ji and a hy­per­link to Star­link’s avail­abil­i­ty map.

Con­trast that with the ar­rival of Dig­i­cel Play, now Dig­i­cel +, in 2016.

For sev­er­al months, kiosks were set up with at­ten­tion-grab­bing ban­ners. Ve­hi­cles sport­ed paint jobs match­ing the colour schemes of those ban­ners to draw the pub­lic’s at­ten­tion to the fact that the ser­vice was com­ing, and they were ready to sign you up at those kiosks, for what was to come.

There is no such op­tion for Star­link.

In fact, there is no ev­i­dence as yet that Star­link even of­fi­cial­ly has a phys­i­cal of­fice space in T&T.

The com­pa­ny’s of­fice, ac­cord­ing to its com­pa­ny reg­is­tra­tion, is at CIC Build­ing at 122-124 Fred­er­ick Street, Port-of-Spain.

The Busi­ness Guardian walked up to that ad­dress and found no sig­nage be­long­ing Star­link.

On en­ter­ing the build­ing, a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer said he was un­aware of Star­link be­ing a ten­ant in the build­ing, nor could he say if they had an of­fice any­where near­by.

He al­so con­firmed we were not the first to come ask­ing, as many be­fore had come, hop­ing to sign up or find out more about the ser­vice.

Star­link, as it has done in oth­er coun­tries, does not have a pub­lic phone num­ber in Trinidad and To­ba­go that cus­tomers can call.

All trans­ac­tions, as it stands, can on­ly be con­duct­ed through the com­pa­ny’s web­site, where po­ten­tial cus­tomers can sign up for the ser­vice af­ter en­ter­ing their street name or area in the avail­abil­i­ty map.

This lim­it­ed pro­mo­tion, in­ad­ver­tent­ly led to some con­fu­sion when the Blue Star Net­work at­tempt­ed to launch its ser­vice two weeks ago, as many peo­ple be­lieved that event to be a sign-up event for Star­link. That led to Blue Star’s CEO and mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Keron Les Pierre to put out a video on so­cial me­dia ex­plain­ing his com­pa­ny was not con­nect­ed to the in­ter­na­tion­al ser­vice provider.

That, how­ev­er, proved that Star­link’s lack of pro­mo­tion has not worked against it, as the lo­cal ISP in­dus­try has un­der­gone a tu­mul­tuous few months as two of its ma­jor providers, Flow and Dig­i­cel, both an­nounced price in­creas­es for their ca­ble and in­ter­net pack­ages.

Dig­i­cel’s mar­ket­ing blitz in 2015 ahead of its 2016, al­lowed it to an­nounce its new in­ter­net (and tele­vi­sion) ser­vice amid a mar­ket then dom­i­nat­ed by Blink (TSTT) and Flow.

Star­link’s ar­rival, how­ev­er, has come in a pe­ri­od where a new al­ter­na­tive is be­ing sought by some mem­bers of the pub­lic, who have ques­tioned if they are get­ting val­ue for mon­ey.

Their com­peti­tors do not seem to be fazed by the new kid on the block and its satel­lite.

Dig­i­cel CEO, Abra­ham Smith in a state­ment sent to the Busi­ness Guardian said: “This is a high­ly com­pet­i­tive mar­ket and the fact re­mains that fi­bre broad­band con­nec­tiv­i­ty, like what Dig­i­cel+ de­liv­ers, is the most re­li­able, best qual­i­ty and a best cost op­tion for cus­tomers across T&T. Fi­bre to the home is proven to re­li­ably de­liv­er ser­vice re­gard­less of cloud cov­er, high winds or oth­er en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that are dai­ly oc­cur­rences here in the Caribbean; and Dig­i­cel is the num­ber one provider of fi­bre con­nec­tiv­i­ty in the coun­try.”

He con­tin­ued to back his brand in spite of re­cent chal­lenges, “We have de­liv­ered mul­ti­ple award-win­ning net­works, with­out hav­ing cus­tomers pay ex­or­bi­tant set-up costs or in­stall bulky equip­ment. Not to men­tion, we cre­ate em­ploy­ment, pay tax­es and con­tribute to na­tion­al well-be­ing through our spon­sor­ships, part­ner­ships and the work of the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion. Re­gard­less of who comes, Dig­i­cel will con­tin­ue to de­liv­er the best net­work and in­vest in the com­mu­ni­ties we serve.”

TSTT did not of­fer a com­ment when asked about Star­link’s ar­rival.

Dig­i­cel’s con­fi­dence may not be mis­placed as the ini­tial fig­ures do not sug­gest that Star­link is seek­ing a mass mar­ket, as ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s res­i­den­tial sign-up page, the ser­vice will cost $365 per month and it will of­fer a typ­i­cal down­load speed of 100 megabits per sec­ond (mbps).

This is more ex­pen­sive than Dig­i­cel’s list­ed base fi­bre in­ter­net pack­age which is cur­rent­ly list­ed at $305 for a down­load speed of 200 mbps.

Flow’s base fi­bre in­ter­net price is list­ed at $285, al­so for 200mbps. Am­plia’s cheap­est fi­bre in­ter­net pack­age is list­ed at $260 for 150mbps.

That would make Star­link eas­i­ly the most ex­pen­sive of the ISP’s with na­tion­al reach.

And that is even be­fore the equip­ment fee of $3,900, as list­ed on its web­site, is con­sid­ered.

How­ev­er, the list­ed speed may not be de­ter­mi­nant, as most lo­cal cus­tomers note while they pay for these speeds, they reg­u­lar­ly get speeds sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er.

It is still left to be seen if Star­link’s satel­lite con­nec­tion would be more con­sis­tent than its fi­bre coun­ter­parts.

How­ev­er, Star­link has pre­vi­ous­ly ad­just­ed its prices to fall in line with the spend­ing pow­er of the mar­ket.

In Au­gust 2022, Star­link an­nounced that it would re­duce the month­ly cost of its In­ter­net plan in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic to com­pete with com­pa­nies of­fer­ing sim­i­lar ser­vices.

The com­pa­ny had launched in Ju­ly 2022, with a month­ly price of RD$7,080 (US$130). Star­link re­duced the price to RD$2,900 (US$52). How­ev­er, since then, its pric­ing with­in var­i­ous Caribbean states has hov­ered around that US$52 mark

Star­link’s ser­vice in Bar­ba­dos cur­rent­ly cost B$110, which is equal to US$55, while Ja­maica’s ser­vice costs J$8,450 which is al­so rough­ly US$55.

T&T’s ser­vice, as list­ed on the Star­link site is equal to US$54.

Star­link in the Caribbean:

Bar­ba­dos

Launch Date: No­vem­ber 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): B$110

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: B$1100

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic

Launch Date: Ju­ly 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): DOP 2,900

Old Month­ly Price: (Res­i­den­tial) DOP 7,080

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: DOP 27,000

Pre­vi­ous Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: DOP 38,900.00

Haiti

Launch Date: March 2023

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): US$50

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: US$522

Ja­maica

Launch Date: Oc­to­ber 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): JMD 8,450

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: JMD 60,500

Guade­loupe

Launch Date: Sep­tem­ber 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price: (Res­i­den­tial) EUR 70

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: EUR 450

Mar­tinique

Launch Date: Sep­tem­ber 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): EUR 65

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: EUR 415

St Mar­teen

Launch Date: Ju­ly 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): EUR 72.80

Old Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): EUR 99

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: EUR 450

St Barthéle­my

Launch Date (Res­i­den­tial): Ju­ly 2022

Cur­rent Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): EUR 70

Old Month­ly Price (Res­i­den­tial): EUR 99

Cur­rent Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: EUR 450

Pre­vi­ous Hard­ware Cost + Ship­ping: EUR 499