Image: Cat Hai Special Zone People’s Committee
Vietnam’s Cat Hai special zone, the island district off Hai Phong that takes in Cat Ba, has put Starlink satellite internet into official use at its government headquarters, ferry piers and remote stations. The service is meant to keep local officials connected for day-to-day administration and for disaster response at sea.
The handover was announced by the Cat Hai People’s Committee in a government post. On the morning of October 9, the committee and Hai Phong’s Department of Science and Technology held an acceptance session for the low Earth orbit service, timed with Vietnam’s National Digital Transformation Day on October 10.
Starlink Vietnam general director Nguyen Minh Duc attended alongside Han Duc Bien, who heads FPT Telecom’s non-terrestrial solutions center, and Pham Huy Thang, deputy director of the city’s science department. Before signing off, the group checked equipment, signal quality, access speed and connection stability at six sites:
Representatives of the Cat Hai committee, Starlink Services Vietnam and FPT International Telecom then signed the acceptance record that puts the service into use. Cat Hai chairman Phan Viet Dien asked the parties to focus on connection quality and stability, especially for disaster prevention and search and rescue, since many of the zone’s islands and coastal points sit far from the center.
Starlink’s path into Vietnam has moved quickly by the country’s standards. In March 2025, the government agreed to let SpaceX run Starlink on a pilot basis through the end of 2030, waiving the usual foreign ownership limits but capping the service at 600,000 subscribers. SpaceX set up its local unit, Starlink Services Vietnam, in September 2025, and the company picked up its operating licenses from the Ministry of Science and Technology earlier this year.
Commercial orders opened on August 13, according to Reuters. Residential plans start at about 1.13 million dong ($43) a month for 100 Mbps, with a faster plan at roughly 1.71 million dong, while hardware starts around 8.66 million dong for the Starlink Mini. That pricing puts Starlink at the premium end of the market in a country where fiber is cheap in the cities, which is exactly why remote islands are the more natural fit.
Hai Phong’s offshore districts know how fragile island telecom can be. When Typhoon Yagi came ashore over Hai Phong and Quang Ninh in September 2024, it knocked out power and toppled mobile towers across northern Vietnam, cutting off communities and slowing rescue work for days. A satellite terminal that only needs power and a clear view of the sky gives local officials a link that does not depend on undersea cables or shore-based towers.
The Cat Hai rollout also follows Starlink’s other recent moves in Vietnam. Low-cost carrier Vietjet signed a deal in September to put free Starlink Wi-Fi on 120 aircraft, after first announcing plans for gate-to-gate connectivity. Emergency use is a familiar pattern for the service elsewhere too, from Korean forest crews to the Hurricane Lowell response in Kauai.
Should more of Vietnam’s coastal provinces follow Cat Hai and add Starlink before the next typhoon season?
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