Photos Of My New Dystopian Broadband Provider

I've grown up on a rural farm on the Scottish island of Barra. Here even the connection to the local electricity grid that we got five years ago seemed like a huge technological leap forward. (Only ninety years behind the rest of the country...)

A lack of an internet connection has pretty much defined my childhood, but this year that all changed. We signed up to Elon Musk's Starlink internet connection.

Unlike Space X's mission to Mars, the Hyperloop or a successful takeover of Twitter, Starlink is actually a working reality.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation (i.e. a network of satellites that enable wireless internet connectivity under its area of influence) that already provides coverage to most of the globe.

For a cost of £75 a month and £500 for the hardware Elon sent us a box that included: A satellite dish and stand, a wifi router and a jumble of cables.

The satellite sits on our roof and swivels about to communicate with one of the 3,000+ Starlink satellites sitting in Low-Earth orbit. We reliably get 200 Mbps of internet speed.

In our rural location, we get an amazing night sky. One downside to our new broadband provider is that it is blocking our view of the actual stars.

Starlink satellites are visible with the naked eye, and Elon wants to launch as many as 42,000 satellites which would significantly outnumber the 5,000-10,000 visible stars.

The picture below shows a long exposure image taken from the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Lab. This research lab presumably intends to look at the stars rather than my broadband provider.

More info: aquaswitch.co.uk