Starlink now live in PH; no word yet on actual release

The map shows that Starlink is available in most of the country except in the National Capital Region (NCR) where it is tagged “coming soon.” (File Photo: iSawRed/Unsplash)

MANILA – Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Wednesday announced that the Starlink internet service is now live in the Philippines, but there is no word yet on the actual launch of the service and the release of Starlink kits.

In a Twitter post, SpaceX posted a link to a map showing the worldwide availability of Starlink and captioned “available na ngayon ang Starlink sa Pilipinas (Starlink is now available in the Philippines).”

The map shows that Starlink is available in most of the country except in the National Capital Region (NCR) where it is tagged “coming soon.”

However, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Anna Mae Lamentillo said the service is not yet available to the public.

“Wala pang units dito (There are no units here for now). We’ll inaugurate the first station officially,” Lamentillo said in a Viber message to reporters.

Starlink earlier announced its pricing, with an upfront cost of USD599 (around PHP33,000) for the Starlink kit and a monthly cost of USD99 (around PHP5,400) after a 30-day trial period for its 200 megabits per second (Mbps) residential service.

Starlink is a high-speed and low-latency internet service that utilizes low-orbit satellites instead of conventional data cables such as DSL or Fiber, making it an easy solution to connecting remote areas.