Bolivia struggles with poor internet connectivity. Why did it still say no to Elon Musk's Starlink?

Indian Express

4 hours ago

Web pages load at a crawling pace. Video streams glitch and freeze. Outside Bolivia's biggest cities, the nearest internet signal is sometimes hours away over treacherous mountain roads.
So when Elon Musk's Starlink offered Bolivia fast, affordable internet beamed from space, many expected the Andean nation of 12 million to celebrate. Instead, Bolivia said no thanks.
Starlink, the satellite internet service from Musk's private space company, SpaceX, has made remarkable strides in South America, spreading to almost every country and bringing high-speed internet to the region's most far-flung corners, even reaching isolated Indigenous people living deep in the Amazon rainforest.
But Starlink's advance has been stymied by Bolivia, which refused to give it an operating license last year, with experts and officials citing worries over its unchecked dominance everywhere it has set up shop, instead choosing to rely on the country's own aging Chinese-made satellite.
The decision to reject Starlink has puzzled and angered people in Bolivia, where internet speeds are the slowest in South America and hundreds of thousands remain offline. Without an internet connection, people often struggle to get an education and lack access to jobs and fast help during natural disasters.
But in keeping Starlink out, Bolivia has joined other nations that have begun to raise alarm about SpaceX and the political influence Musk can exert through his control of a telecommunications network used by governments, militaries and people across the world.
Starlink, which did not respond to requests for comment, has also faced roadblocks in the Caribbean, Europe and South Africa. Musk claims that 'there is no substitute for Starlink' and uses X, the social media platform he also owns, to promote his right-wing politics. And he has been vocal about the power he wields.
'Countries have realized that they cannot just rely on one party,' said Antoine Grenier, the global head of space at Analysys Mason, a consultancy based in England.
Just over half of Bolivian homes have broadband internet, compared with 87% in Brazil and 94% in Chile. More than 90% of Bolivians use cellphones to go online, but in rural areas where cell signals can be spotty, many have no way to connect to the internet.
'People sometimes have to get up on a tree or a rock to get the signal,' said Patricia Llanos, a university professor and geographer who often leads teams of field researchers in Bolivia's Amazon region. 'It's a big problem for us.'
Elsewhere in the world, Starlink has helped bring the internet to many places. In only a few years, SpaceX has launched more than 7,300 small satellites into space, connecting more than 5 million people across 125 countries.
But despite its success elsewhere, Starlink is viewed with suspicion by Bolivia's government.
The worry, according to Bolivian authorities and experts, is that Starlink could usher in unfair competition and undermine the country's sovereignty by handing over too much control to a powerful foreign company, which may try to use its influence to sway Bolivian regulations in its favor.
Starlink 'has technological superiority' over Bolivia's own internet services, said Iván Zambrana, the director of Bolivia's space agency, which owns the nation's Chinese-made satellite and has been operating it since its launch in 2013. But regulators must set rules to ensure that Starlink contributes to Bolivia's economy and 'competes on equal terms' without undercutting local internet providers, he added.
'Any company that comes to do business in the country is going to get a piece of the pie — a pie that right now belongs to those of us here,' Zambrana said in an interview.
Starlink's service has become a hit in much of South America largely because it can be difficult and costly to bring traditional internet infrastructure to remote areas. In villages that can be reached only by boat or over dirt roads, compact Starlink kits offer a cheaper, more practical way to get homes, schools and hospitals online.
In Brazil, its biggest market in Latin America, Starlink has grown to more than 250,000 subscribers since arriving in 2022, according to the company's figures.
But Brazil has started looking for alternatives, fearing an overreliance on Starlink. Last year, after Musk's X defied orders by the country's Supreme Court to take down right-wing social media posts peddling misinformation, Brazil struck a deal with SpaceSail, a Chinese rival currently developing its own satellite internet system.
In Bolivia, Zambrana played down the country's need for Starlink, insisting that the Chinese satellite it uses is reliable and provides internet coverage across the country. 'There's no place where these services aren't provided,' he said.
But experts say that, in reality, the aging satellite is no match for Starlink. Its signal is slow and patchy, and installing antennas and satellite dishes in rural areas is expensive and difficult.
Now, the Bolivian-run satellite is nearing the end of its life span, with expectations that it could run out of fuel and go offline as early as 2028.
Bolivia is still evaluating how to replace the satellite, but it has held early talks with China's SpaceSail about possibly using the satellite network it is building, said Hugo Siles, Bolivia's ambassador to China.
'We have been working with China because we feel that there is an absolute accommodation in terms of Bolivian regulations and a respect for sovereignty,' Siles said in an interview.
SpaceSail, which did not respond to a request for comment, plans to launch 648 low-orbiting satellites this year and as many as 15,000 by 2030, according to figures posted by the Shanghai municipal government, which owns SpaceSail.
'If anyone is going to be able to compete with Starlink in the near future, it will be them,' said Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University.
For now, pressure to connect Bolivians is growing, with lawmakers reconsidering if the country should allow Starlink to operate in the country.
Starlink appears optimistic about its chances. On its map of service locations, it lists Bolivia as one country where its satellite internet will become available in 2025.
This would be welcome news for Adrián Valencia, 45, a schoolteacher in Quetena Chico, a town of 1,000 residents in Bolivia's southern region.
Valencia, who runs the town's only high school, serving some 200 students, said the town's poor internet connection means that he has to drive six hours to the closest city to upload educational videos that he records for his students.
'The internet is terrible,' he said. That undermines his students' education and digital literacy. 'Not having internet access,' he added, 'is like not being able to read.'
Some local hotels have even smuggled Starlink routers across the border from neighboring Chile. Even though the signal reaches sections of Bolivia's border, Starlink typically cuts off the internet after a few months.
As Llanos, the geographer, prepared a workshop recently in a remote forest region seven hours from La Paz, she, too, hoped to turn to Starlink, asking colleagues to bring her a router. They could not get one in time, though, so the 80 participants used walkie-talkies to communicate during their training.
'Even though we have a satellite in space,' said Llanos, referring to the Chinese spacecraft, 'we still don't have a way to connect.'