All aboard Musk's Starlink enterprise

STARLINK BEAMS THE INTERNET DIRECTLY FROM SPACE USING THOUSANDS OF LOW EARTH ORBIT SATELLITES

- Charles Assisi

Imagine living in a small village nestled deep in the Himalayas or in a quiet settlement tucked away in India's vast deserts. For millions of Indians, internet connectivity is still not just unreliable—it's often non-existent. In these remote corners, laying fibre-optic cables or erecting cell towers is prohibitively expensive, leaving vast stretches of the country digitally stranded. But what if the solution wasn't on the ground, but high above, in space?

That's exactly the idea behind Starlink, Elon Musk's ambitious project. Instead of relying on cables buried underground or towers dotting the landscape, Starlink beams the internet directly from space using thousands of low Earth orbit satellites. Each satellite orbits about 550 kilometres above the Earth's surface—much closer than traditional satellites, which hover around 35,000 kilometres away. This closeness significantly cuts down on the lag (what tech experts call 'latency'), making Starlink faster and more responsive than older satellite services.