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The CEO of BT Group, Allison Kirkby, has confirmed that last year’s “landmark agreement” to make Starlink’s mega constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) available to their consumer broadband customers in “rural and remote areas“ (here) has been put on pause over recent controversy around the company and boss Elon Musk.
The new service was originally due to launch around the end of 2026, although it remains unclear precisely how BT and EE would have positioned this given how consumers can already buy Starlink’s broadband plans directly and at some impressively affordable pricing (currently starting at £28 per month in some UK areas for c.100Mbps speeds). But we assume BT were planning something a bit different from simply reselling the same product.
At the time Allison Kirkby described the planned service launch as being a “giant leap for rural connectivity – allowing us to get fast and reliable in-home connectivity to our customers in some of the UK’s most rural and isolated areas and to bridge the digital divide better than ever“. However, a lot can happen in the space of a year, particularly, it seems, with regards to how much damage Elon Musk is capable of doing to his own brands.