Elon Musk's Starlink Brings High-Speed Internet To Remote Tribe For First Time

A remote Native American tribe is enjoying high-speed internet for the first time thanks to Elon Musk's Starlink. You can see how here:

The SpaceX founder is aiming to spread rapid broadband across the globe with the Starlink satellite network, and the Hoh Tribe in Washington State are among the first to benefit.

Melvinjohn Ashue, vice chairman of the tribe, said: "We're very remote. The last eight years I felt like we've been paddling up river with a spoon and almost getting nowhere with getting internet to the reservation.

"It seemed like out of nowhere, SpaceX came up and just catapulted us into the 21st century."

The tribe subsequently thanked SpaceX on Twitter, and Musk replied: "You're most welcome!"

There are currently almost 800 Starlink satellites in orbit, though the plan is to continue to rapidly expand this network to 12,000.

Starlink's mission statement reads: "With performance that far surpasses that of traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations, Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive or completely unavailable.

"Starlink is targeting service in the Northern US and Canada in 2020, rapidly expanding to near global coverage of the populated world by 2021."

The Hoh Tribe and Starlink were hooked up by the Washington State Department of Commerce, which said the collaboration demonstrated what can be achieved through teamwork.

Posting on social media, the department said: "How is this for a creative partnership? SpaceX and Hoh Tribe prove we can overcome the digital divide.

"This is one example of projects we're working on to bring high-speed internet access to everyone in Washington state. Working together we can make it happen!"

While Starlink has clearly been of huge benefit to the Hoh Tribe, it has been widely criticised by astronomers, who warn the bright satellites interfere with observations and impede scientific progress.

A report published by Satellite Constellations 1 (SATCON1) workshop in August stated: "We find that the worst-case constellation designs prove extremely impactful to the most severely affected science programs."

It continued: "Most astronomical researchers and institutions are only now, a little over a year after the first tranche of 60 Starlink satellites were launched, coming to appreciate fully the magnitude and complexity of the problem."

Topics: elon musk, US News, Technology, space

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey