SpaceX Partners with Texas School District to Provide Free Internet to Families in Need

With the pandemic causing many schools to resort to at-home learning, the digital divide is disrupting education across the country.  To help in this fight, SpaceX has partnered with the Ector County Independent School District in Texas to provide free broadband internet to dozens of families who either don’t have, or have a poor internet connection.

The SpaceX satellite internet service – Starlink – will provide the service, and it’s the first time SpaceX has worked with a school district in this capacity.

The partnership announced that they will first supply high-speed internet to 45 families living in Pleasant Farms with the intention to roll it out to 90 more families after that. According to Odessa America, half of the project’s $300,000 price tag will be funded by Chiefs for Change, and education advocacy group.

“Our research clearly indicates the lack of broadband access is a crisis in Ector County,” said Scott Muri, the school district’s superintendent, in a statement.

According to district surveys, 39% of families in Ector County have poor or no internet connection. Now, because of the Starlink program, many of those families will be provided a reliable broadband internet connection. This will enable the children the ability to learn from home as many schools have either shut down, or limited the number of students in the physical classroom due to the pandemic.

SpaceX’s Starlink promises to do what it can to help fill the digital gap. Currently, Starlink is able to produce 100Mbps download speeds at a latency of around 30 milliseconds. This is on par with ground-based internet.

Right now, SpaceX is providing satellite internet to Texas – a US state in lower latitudes, however there are plans to start a public beta for Starlink to send a signal to higher latitudes in the future.  By 2021, SpaceX is expected to launch additional satellites into orbit that will help power the Starlink network. As of today there are 800 satellites. Their goal is to have thousands more in orbit.

SpaceX is planning to launch a complete satellite internet system worldwide to consumers next year.  In the meantime, Ector County Schools just hope that Starlink can be a “permanent solution” to the states digital divide problem.

Story via PC Magazine