Anatel allows Elon Musk’s company Starlink to operate satellites in Brazil

The National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) gave approval this Friday (28) to requests from Starlink, a company owned by the billionaire founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, and Swarm to operate low-orbit satellites in Brazil.

The operation of this equipment in Brazil is on the agenda of the Ministry of Communications, commanded by Fábio Faria, who in December even met with Musk to discuss offering the service in Brazil. These are the first authorizations for the operation of this type of satellite in the country.

Faria has already stated on other occasions that the purpose of this type of technology is to bring internet to rural areas and remote places, in addition to helping to control fires and illegal deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

the internet of Starlink, according to company information, works by sending information through the vacuum of space, where it travels faster than fiber optic cables, making it more accessible to more people and places.

According to the company, while most of the internet Current satellite communications are made possible by simple geostationary satellites orbiting the planet at about 35,000 kilometers in altitude.

Starlink is a constellation of more than 4,000 satellites that orbit the planet at a distance closer to Earth, about 550 kilometers.

As they are in low orbit, the time of sending and receiving data between the user and the satellite – the latency – is much shorter than with satellites in geostationary orbit, according to the company.

The exploration right by Swarm, which also employs a constellation of 150 non-geostationary satellites, in Brazil should be valid until 2035. Starlink’s, until 2027.

According to Anatel’s decision, any change in the number of satellites in non-geostationary systems will require a new authorization by the agency.