Starlink belongs to billionaire Elon Musk. The plan involves the start of operations of the Chinese satellite company SpaceSail in Brazil, which intends to operate in the Brazilian market currently led by Starklink. The information was confirmed to BBC News Brasil by the telecommunications secretary of the Ministry of Communications, Hermano Barros Tercius.
The idea, according to Tercius, is for Brazil and China to sign memoranda of understanding on the topic during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the country on November 20.
However, there is still no deadline for the company to start operating in the country. When contacted, the Chinese embassy did not respond to questions sent by the report.
SpaceSail is a private Chinese company headquartered in Shanghai and operates in the broadband Internet market delivered by low-orbit satellites.
The company currently has 18 satellites, but its plans call for launching up to 15,000 by 2030. For comparison, Starlink is estimated to have 6,000.
Known as LEO (Low Earth Orbit), these satellites are smaller and form real “constellations” around the Earth. They are located at a distance of about 549 km from the Earth’s surface, while conventional ones would be almost 1,000 km away.
Because they are closer, the data transmission time is shorter, which allows for a faster and more reliable Internet connection.
In Brazil, Elon Musk’s Starlink is the leader and holds 45.9% of the satellite Internet market, according to data from the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel).
But worsening tensions between Musk and Brazilian authorities have raised rumors about the possible effects of the country’s dependence on the billionaire’s company.
Photo caption, In Brazil, Musk’s Starlink is already a leader in the satellite Internet market
Contacts between SpaceSail and Brazil officially began in mid-August. On the 20th of the same month, a delegation led by the company’s president, Jie Zheng, met with representatives of the Brazilian government, including
The company’s plans, presented at the time, envisage entering operations in Brazil by 2025.
To do this, however, the company needs authorizations from Anatel so that, among other things, the company can build the ground infrastructure that allows access to the signal from its satellites in Brazil.
SpaceSail would work similarly to Starlink and other satellite Internet services. The user should install a small antenna to be able to access the Internet.
According to Hermano Tercius, one of the memorandums of understanding negotiated between Brazil and China provides for the technical collaboration necessary for services such as SpaceSail to begin operating in the country.
“We are evolving in the texts and discussions to see if we can sign [o memorando]. This would create a more concrete intention to collaborate, which is not yet a commitment. [O memorando] It is the intention to collaborate with what they may be missing [SpaceSail] move up [a entrada em operação]”Tercius tells BBC News Brasil.
The secretary also specified that it is not clear whether the memorandum will involve only the communications ministries of the two countries or whether SpaceSail and Telebras, a Brazilian state company in the telecommunications sector, will also participate in the document.
One possibility is that Telebras, which already has contracts with the federal government, could use SpaceSail’s services to provide broadband Internet to schools or other facilities of interest to the Brazilian government.
Tercius said he did not know whether the crisis involving Elon Musk and the Federal Supreme Court (STF) had affected negotiations between the two governments. According to him, the search for new satellite internet service providers is an attempt by Brazil to avoid the formation of “monopolies” in the sector.
“We try, of course, to avoid monopolies and to have this competition so that we know who provides the best service and who offers a better cost so that the population has greater accessibility to this type of service […] Regardless of how the Starlink situation evolves, we hope there will be more suppliers,” says the secretary.
The secretary also specified that the Brazilian government has brought to China the proposal that part of the launches of the satellites of the SpaceSail constellation take place from the Alcântara Launch Center (CLA), in Maranh
“What we tried was to see with them the possibility that, in addition to providing services to Brazil, they could use our missile launch base to launch satellites from here […] it will be good for them because it will be able to accelerate their operational program, and it is also good for us because we will make better use of the Alcântara base,” says Tercius.