The City of Manila plans to purchase dishes from Starlink, an internet service by SpaceX that offers internet connection using low-orbit satellites.
Manila City Mayor Isko Moreno Domagoso had a meeting with SpaceX representative last March 29, the same day that Senator Manny Pacquiao also met with the same executives.
SEE ALSO: Starlink in the Philippines: What you need to know about the satellite internet from SpaceX
The meeting was about the possible acquisition of Starlink low-orbit satellites by the Manila City government. If it pushes through, they will be the first to have it in Southeast Asia.
As per the mayor they plan to purchase around 1,000 dishes as it aims to bring faster and reliable internet service to universities, public schools, hospitals, and police stations within the city.
SpaceX recently increased the prices of Starlink services in the United States. A starter kit now costs USD599 (around Php31,400) with a monthly fee of USD110 (around Php5,800).
So, how much will 1k cost and what will be the monthly service cost? Also, the total bandwidth of a satellite is limited and as more people get dishes they’ve seen speeds decline. The obvious strategy is to add more restrictions and raise prices as more people subscribe. It would be more cost effective to just run fiber or even normal copper. The links that the telcos have to the world are magnitudes faster than Starlink and have plans to bring up a lot more capacity in the years to come. And now third party telcos can enter and bring more competition. Starlink also has a lot of jitter and is unsuitable for some tasks–there are complaints about video calls.