Starlink services are now available on Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands
Ecuador welcomed SpaceX’s Starlink broadband services this weekend, with operations going live in the Galapagos Islands. “Bienvenido Starlink,” tweeted the country’s President Guillermo Lasso, adding his appreciation for Telecom Ecuador, the government’s telecommunications ministry, which is responsible for securing Starlink’s presence.
Service is now available for inhabitants of the Galapagos Islands, in addition to the region’s approximately 250,000 annual visitors. According to Vianna Maino, Ecuador’s minister of Telecommunications and the Information Society, the recent launch demonstrates how committed the government is to attracting investment in the telecommunications sector, and in addressing the digital divide, which is particularly notable in areas like the Galapagos Islands, where rough terrain makes it difficult and costly to install telecommunications infrastructure.
SpaceX currently operates a constellation of around 3,900 Starlink Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and provides internet connection to one million subscribers around the world. While the company’s ambitions are sky high — or maybe space high? — it has had some growing pains on the way, according to Ookla. The firm said in September that it had shown signs of slowing down since its initial launch, recording a drop in median download speed between 9-54% from the second quarter of 2021 to the second quarter of 2022.
“Starlink speeds decreased in every country we surveyed over the past year as more users sign up for service,” Ookla said. It looked at Starlink performance in Europe, Oceania, North America and South America, including eight additional countries and “expanded data” compared to its previous looks at satellite internet providers’ services.
However, it noted: “Starlink still reached a median download speed of at least 60 Mbps in North America during Q2 2022, which is more than enough for at least one connected device to do most everything on the internet including streaming video, downloading games, and chatting on video with friends and family. … For most users, we still suspect these dips are still worthwhile for areas that have no service, slow service, or few affordable options for fast internet.”
For more information, read Ookla’s analysis here.
