Last month, SpaceX and FSET Information Technology announced it would bring Starlink internet to the people of Pikangikum First Nation — an indigenous Canadian community.
Pikangikum First Nation is a small, remote fly-in community located roughly 225 km north of Kenora, Ontario. With a population of 2,300 people, they have been isolated without high-speed internet access, until now, thanks to SpaceX, FSET and also the Canadian and Ontario government.
Pikangikum First Nation became the first in Canada to get Starlink internet, after FSET reached out to SpaceX.
To learn more about the project, FSET has shared a powerful video detailing, “How Pikangikum First Nation and SpaceX partnered to bring Starlink Internet to the community and with it, quality of life.”
Check it out below, which details the process of flying in Starlink hardware to Pikangikum First Nation. Within 15 minutes of landing–the first high-speed Starlink connection went online.
The video shows download speeds of 130 Mbps download using Netflix’s Fast.com speed test. Prior to this, one resident proclaimed the new speeds are “better than 60 kilobytes per second”, compared to before. Wow.
High-speed internet for the community opens up new opportunities for education, healthcare, policing and more.
SpaceX’s Starlink network is a constellation of 955 low-orbit satellites, offering high-speed and relatively affordable internet access to rural areas, when compared to traditional satellite internet. SpaceX continues to send more satellites into space, with a goal of 12,000 total. The next Starlink-16 launch is set to take place on December 31, 2020.
