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TECH BILLIONAIRE ELON Musk is to help improve internet connections for locals in a broadband dead-zone in Co Cork, after a businesswoman got in touch with his company about her patchy connection.
Emma Fitzpatrick is an acupuncturist who offers therapies and online classes to help teach people exercises to de-stress. Since the pandemic hit, she, her husband and two children have been competing for internet from their home in Knockawaddra, Co Cork.
During lockdowns, particularly when the children were attending school online and her husband was working from home, Fitzpatrick says that they were in competition for the Internet.
“And if there was a mere puff of wind, I couldn’t get on, or I’d be stressing that I couldn’t get on,” she told The Journal of trying to run her business.
So they upgraded to mobile broadband, but after a particularly strong gust of wind, the whole system crashed. When the engineer arrived to fix the problem, Fitzpatrick said he told her they were “2km too far out for us to service you”.
He told me ‘If I tried to service you, I’d probably lose my job’. So it was a sink or swim moment.
Desperate to keep her business afloat, Fitzpatrick asked around about the issue with her neighbours, and found that they were all struggling with poor, patchy broadband.
There are four micro businesses in the area, including artist Lesley Cox, who was finding it would take half an hour to upload a photo. Other locals said people had lost jobs because they couldn’t be online, and children had lost out on learning.
So Fitzpatrick and Cox began a campaign to get better internet to the area. Fitzpatrick found that fibre was the solution to broadband ‘dead-zones’ – but a fibre connection stopped 1km away from them.
The difference it would make for them would be massive: an upload speed of 40-50 MB per 30 seconds versus the 0.7 upload speed she currently has.
During her campaign to get fibre for her area, Fitzpatrick heard that tech billionaire Elon Musk had helped locals in the dead-zone of Black Valley in Co Kerry to get a connection.
“I decided to reach out to him, so I tabled a question to Tesla on their noticeboard, and it was picked up on… I was then contacted directly by SpaceX.”
Elon Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX, which has developed Starlink: low Earth orbit satellites that provide satellite Internet access. SpaceX has now signed Fitzpatrick and Cox up for a trial. If the system is then approved by ComReg it could make a big difference to locals in Knockawaddra – as well as other hard-to-reach areas in rural Ireland.
“The equipment is shipped, and we’re really excited about this, it could make a big difference to four micro businesses, and lots of people will be able to effectively work from home.
“If successful, they would surely have a good market for our community here, and a wider market in Ireland.”
Fitzpatrick said it was a shame that Ireland’s stalled and much-troubled National Broadband Plan couldn’t respond to rural Ireland as fast as Sillicon Valley could.
“We’re excited, but saddened that it took two weeks of hard campaigning and reaching out to Sillicon Valley to get it done. I had to park a lot of work to be able to do this.”
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Go girl !
@Riddled Fidl: sound feen.
Bond Villain
@Dave Connolly: I don’t know much about him but there’s something very unusual about the guy that I can’t put my finger on.
Bill Gates is villfied by the anti vaxx crowd wanting to put micochips in the covid vaccines but Elon who publicly has stated his idea for putting microchips into brains gets a free pass.
@Ally Mc Culladgh: it’s a great idea. Could cure blindness, deafness etc
And once she gets the vaccine that’s her and the community under the control of the evil tech lords! I for one welcome all this, pump me full of the vaccine and give me unlimited data and a bucket of Monster and I’ll be set to go!
They’ll have their own satellites?!! And not just one – BUT TWO?!!! The thermosphere is about to get very crowded if individual satellites are required for everyone.
@Steve: no, they are shared satellites. The article is a bit unclear tho! They each get a dish for home…
@Steve: They don’t have many up there at the moment but in order to provide the sort of coverage they are looking for they are talking about 30,000 devices in Low Earth Orbit eventually. If completed it will literally change the look of the night sky.
However, it’s certainly a much more efficient solution to broadband supply in rural areas than envisioned under the National Broadband Plan. Under the NBP those people would (eventually) have to be tied in to the fibre grid which would mean building a mini exchange and rolling out a 10+ km of fibre to connect the scattered houses. For the same 4 customers.
Spacex estimate the cost of their network, when complete, should come in around the $10Billion mark. It will cover the entire globe. We’re talking about paying €3Billion to cover the island of Ireland. One of us is doing it *wrong* and I’ll leave it there.
@John Considine: we should be on the phone to SpaceX immediately and be asking to be a test country for this StarLink internet. Could save us a few billion…which is much needed.
@HarveyLemonade: To their credit, ComReg have made consideration for the provision of such a service almost 4 years ago:
https://www.comreg.ie/media/dlm_uploads/2017/07/ComReg-1726sR.pdf
I believe Starlink hope to be operating commercially here by the end of the year. Presumably that means the application process for licensing is going well. I believe the costs will be comparatively high to start though. I remember reading the bi-directional satellite dish was going to cost €500. Found the article on the Indo:
“The service costs €99 per month plus a €499 charge for the required satellite dish and a €61 delivery fee.”
@HarveyLemonade: been saying since before the NBP was launched. Old world thinking and way too expensive.
@John Considine: shame you’re wrong though.
Fair play.
Hang on. Were the government not paying somebody a shed load of money to do this already?
@Dave Thomas: they’ll dump it the minute they get fibre
I have heard about this Space Ex Broad Band in the states..
It is a satellite of sum sort if my memory serves me.. getting great reviews
The system is called starlink and it is based on the low ceiling of the satellites in orbit and all u need is a dish and away u go..
Price wise I think is an issue great at start but goes up..
But I’d say well worth it..
@Sportmad: I thin the idea is to make it affordable! Everything Elon does is an attempt to make things cheaper – electric cars, rockets, tunnels, solar panels and now broadband. He has already reduced the cost of putting a rocket in space by 10s of millions
@David Kelly: yes that is his Model but the cost of entry is Cheap about $500 inc all equipment and attachments as it’s a portable device mainly..
But the reviewers if I’m not mistaken are complaining about the nominal user cost which is very high..
It is an incredible product to be fair but look at the Tesla car price out of reach of majority
We are in a dead zone also, was promised high speed ISDN line by May 2006, still waiting…
However we’ve been notified that we will have high speed by the end of this summer which is a huge relief as long as it’s not another false dawn, we’re only 6 miles from Tralee!
@David Grey: I’m only 6 miles from cork city, fibre a 200-300 metres north, south and west of me. Not in NBI plans until 2024 at the earliest. I’ve already registered with starlink for service before the end of the this year. Pay 45 a month already for single digit speeds from Vodafone, 99 a month for starlink but will be well worth it
“Eeey”
Many individuals and biz stuck in broadband never-ever land may be interested in “Plan B for #NBP” which I recently sent to Gov ministers, TDs etc about National Broadband Plan & potential of low-Earth orbit LEO sats like #Starlink.
Summary: http://bit.ly/3cyDb1A
I don’t blame anyone for getting starlink in, but good lord I hate that company for what they are doing to the night sky. By the time they are finished they will have tens of thousands of satellites meandering across the night sky. Star gazing will never be the same for anyone on the planet ever again. Astro photography also horrifically impacted.
I’ve just seen the 60 satalites pass over caherdaniel co Kerry. It’s mad looking. 13/5/21. .
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