Star­link, a com­pa­ny found­ed by con­tro­ver­sial bil­lion­aire busi­ness­man Elon Musk, has re­ceived a con­ces­sion to pro­vide a satel­lite broad­band ser­vice in T&T.

The con­ces­sion was grant­ed to Star­link In­ter­net Ser­vices Trinidad and To­ba­go by the Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion ef­fec­tive May 17, 2023. The con­ces­sion is for a pe­ri­od of 10 years.

Star­link re­ceived a Type 2 con­ces­sion for the pro­vi­sion of a pub­lic do­mes­tic fixed (via satel­lite) telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work and pub­lic do­mes­tic fixed telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices on a na­tion­al ge­o­graph­ic scale.

On its web­site, a Star­link avail­abil­i­ty map in­di­cates that the satel­lite ser­vice is com­ing soon to T&T “pend­ing ser­vice cov­er­age or reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval.” The map projects that the ser­vice will start in Q2 2023, which ends in 22 days.

Star­link op­er­ates a con­stel­la­tion of satel­lites that al­low it to sup­port ser­vices in­clud­ing stream­ing, on­line gam­ing, video calls. Star­link satel­lites are op­er­at­ed by SpaceX, a pri­vate com­pa­ny of which Musk is the largest share­hold­er.

A check with the Com­pa­nies Reg­istry yes­ter­day in­di­cat­ed that Star­link In­ter­net Ser­vices has three di­rec­tors–Gavin­dra Sal­ick of 122 to 124 Fred­er­ick St Port-of-Spain and SpaceX em­ploy­ees Lau­ren Drey­er and Richard Lee of Mc Gre­gor, Texas