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Telecoms giant BT (EE) has this morning announced a “landmark agreement” to make Starlink’s mega constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) available to their consumer broadband customers in “rural and remote areas“, where traditional fixed-line infrastructure is “economically unviable or geographically challenging” to build.
The announcement doesn’t provide a lot of information on how this will be deployed, but it does state that Starlink is “quick to deploy and capable of delivering download speeds of up to 280 Mbps“. The collaboration is also curiously described as being a “first in the UK and one of the first globally“, although we’re not currently sure what makes this a “first” – Starlink is already used by other providers, sometimes they just resell the service and other times it’s adopted as backhaul for an existing network.
The new service is currently expected to be available to customers in the “latter half of 2026” and we assume BT / EE must be planning to do something a bit different from merely reselling the same product that consumers can already buy, today, directly from Starlink itself. The move comes shortly after O2 announced that they’d also be harnessing Starlink, albeit to connect their roaming mobile users via Direct to Cell (here).
Allison Kirkby, CEO of BT Group, said:
“As we create a better BT for all of us, no one is doing more to connect the UK than we are. This landmark agreement with Starlink is a giant leap for rural connectivity – allowing us to get fast and reliable in-home connectivity to our customers in some of the UK’s most rural and isolated areas and to bridge the digital divide better than ever.”
Chad Gibbs, VP of Business Operations at SpaceX, said:
“On behalf of Starlink, we’re excited to team up with BT Group and bring high-speed internet to more people across the UK. Their local presence will help us reach those communities which have historically faced challenges with reliable connectivity. Starlink is committed to its mission to connect the unconnected while maintaining focus on delivering overall quality of service.”
Starlink currently has almost 8,900 satellites in orbit (c.5,300 are v2 / V2 Mini) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km – and rising. Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £75 a month, plus £299 for hardware (currently free for most areas) on the ‘Standard’ unlimited data plan (kit price may vary due to different offers), which promises UK latency times of 26-33ms, downloads of 116-277Mbps and uploads of 17-32Mbps. Cheaper and more restrictive options also exist for roaming users.