Closure of UK terminals
1,300 Starlink terminals were disconnected in Ukraine on October 24 due to financial problems, informs CNN, the TV channel citing anonymous sources. After that, communication problems began in the country.
The article states that small and easy-to-use Starlink satellite Internet terminals begin to be delivered to Ukraine in the spring. They have become a “revolutionary communications resource for the Ukrainian military”, allowing them to stay in touch even when cellular and Internet networks are down.
“The last shutdown began on October 24 and became a major problem for the Ukrainian armed forces. The terminals were closed due to lack of funding. The outage affected a block of 1,300 terminals that Ukraine bought from a British company in March and used for military operations.
According to the channel, SpaceX charged the Ukrainian military $2,500 per month to connect each of its 1,300 devices, bringing the total cost of service to “almost $20 million” by September. According to a CNN source, “in the end they (the Ukrainians – socialbites.ca) could no longer afford the payment.”
A senior Ukrainian official confirmed the mistake to CNN, calling Starlink units “very important” in Ukraine’s fight against Russia. At the same time, before the terminals were completely shut down, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense approached its British counterparts with a request to pay a monthly bill of $3.25 million for the terminals delivered, the TV channel reported. The source added that because of fears that UK-supplied terminals will be shut down, Ukrainians have changed some “to minimize the impact”.
“We have a number of terminals of direct tactical importance for the Ukrainian army in repelling a Russian invasion. “We are examining and prioritizing all new requests for the impact of donations on helping Ukraine protect its people from Putin’s invasion,” a British official told CNN.
financing issues
October 7 Financial Times knowledgeableThat the Starlink satellite system began to malfunction along the entire front line. Because of this, the Armed Forces of Ukraine suffered “disastrous losses” in the Donbass, Kherson, Zaporozhye and Kharkiv regions.
CNN in mid-October, SpaceX in September sent A letter to the Pentagon in which he says he cannot continue to fund the Starlink service as before. The company asked the US Department of Defense to bear the additional costs of maintaining satellite Internet terminals in Ukraine.
“We are not in a position to donate more terminals to Ukraine or to finance existing terminals for an indefinite period,” the company’s letter states.
The founder of the company, Elon Musk, confirmed this information on his Twitter account.
“SpaceX does not want reimbursement of past expenditures, but cannot finance the current system indefinitely and send thousands of new terminals (to Ukraine) that use 100 times more data than ordinary households. It doesn’t make sense,” he wrote.
As CNN noted at the time, although Ukrainian officials thanked Elon Musk for maintaining Starlink, the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals actually delivered to the country “received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, UK and UK. Poland.”
“According to SpaceX data provided to the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine have been paid for or partially paid for by countries such as the USA and Poland. <...> These organizations also paid for about 30% of the internet connection, which costs $4,500 per month, according to SpaceX,” the channel said.
At the same time, Poland undertook the financing of about 9,000 terminals.
A few days later, Elon Musk changed his mind and announced that SpaceX was withdrawing his request.
“Damn him. We will continue to finance the Ukrainian government free of charge,” he wrote.
He later announced that there are not 20 but 25,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine. Less than 11,000 of these are paid for.
Source: Gazeta
Jackson Ruhl is a tech and sci-fi expert, who writes for “Social Bites”. He brings his readers the latest news and developments from the world of technology and science fiction.