On January 27, SpaceX announced that Starlink internet is now available in Perú. It is the third country in South America to have access to the broadband satellite service. “Starlink ahora está disponible en Perú!,” the company Tweeted in Spanish. They also shared a link that leads to SpaceX’s Starlink coverage map, where interested customers can type their address to see if internet is available in their specific location. Approximately 3 million people living in remote communities in Perú lack access to the internet since November 2022, according to Telefonica del Perú. These rural areas are hard to serve for fiber-optic cable internet providers. SpaceX’s Starlink internet will be able to connect these communities because the satellites directly beam internet service to user antennas that are easy to set-up without the need to build additional ground infrastructures. 

Starlink ahora está disponible en Perú! → https://t.co/slZbTmZmAt

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 27, 2023

SpaceX’s Starlink coverage map [Starlink.com/map] provides approximate dates of when Starlink will expand to more countries in South America and Central America. During the first quarter this year SpaceX aims to connect: Ecuador, Panama, and Colombia. As SpaceX launches more satellites to orbit the internet service could expand in 2024 to: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay and Uruguay. 

Chile was the first country in the region to connect to Starlink in September 2021. “Starlink was designed for remote communities such as Caleta Sierra (Coquimbo Region) and Sotomó (Los Lagos Region),” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told SUBTEL telecommunication agency representatives in July 2021. Starlink “high-speed connectivity can have a transformative impact on these communities and we are eager to support these pilot programs, starting with local schools,” Shotwell stated. SpaceX collaborated with Chile government representatives to connect a community of around 20 families, as well as a couple of schools located in remote areas of Caleta Sierra and Sotomo.

Then, Starlink coverage expanded to Brazil in 2022 soon after SpaceX founder Elon Musk met with Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro and the Minister of Communications Fábio Faria to discuss bringing internet connectivity to the most remote places. Mr. Faria shared last year that Starlink will benefit rural communities and help protect the Amazon rainforest. "Super excited [...] for launch of Starlink for 19,000 unconnected schools in rural areas & environmental monitoring of Amazon!" Musk shared on May 20, 2022.  SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell traveled to Brazil in September 2022 to visit a school in the Amazon region that was connected to Starlink internet, as previously reported by TESMANIAN. "Education is the path out of poverty and Internet access enables education," says Musk. Around 40 million Brazilian people have no access to the Internet, that is around 19% of the population. Starlink can facilitate the government's efforts to expand coverage to hard-to-reach areas.

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Featured Image Source: SpaceX Starlink.com