The Country of Georgia Approves SpaceX Starlink Internet Service

SpaceX has launched a total of 2,858 Starlink satellites to orbit to date. The company aims to launch a total of 12,000 to provide high-speed internet access on a global scale. It is deploying satellites on a weekly basis to rapidly expand broadband coverage. Starlink provides internet access to over 500,000 subscribers living across 36 countries. 

On July 14, the country of Georgia approved SpaceX Starlink internet service. Georgia is located located in the Caucasus in-between Eastern Europe and Western Asia along the Black Sea; it neighbors Russia to the north and east, Turkey to the southwest, by Armenia to the south, and by Azerbaijan to the southeast. The Georgian National Communications Commission (ComCom) said that "Starlink is especially important and interesting in mountainous regions as well as in settlements without broadband internet coverage,” stated ComCom in a translated statement. "After the introduction of Starlink, access to high-speed Internet in all such geographical areas will be available to anyone." These mountainous regions do not have internet access because fiber-optic infrastructures and other terrestrial telecommunications technologies are difficult and expensive to build due to the geographical terrain. Starlink provides a simple solution to enable Internet access to any remote location on the planet where the satellites actively beam data from Low Earth Orbit. Starlink users can easily access the network with a pizza-sized antenna that communicates with the satellites in orbit.

SpaceX expects Starlink will be available across Georgia in 2023, however, not in areas near the country's border with Russia, according to the company's official Starlink Coverage Map. Russia is among the countries where SpaceX does not plan to provide Starlink services, includes: Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela. 

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