The Italian government announced that it is looking forward to testing Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to provide internet connection in remote areas of the country.
According to Reuters, the Undersecretary to the Prime Minister's Office Alessio on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, told Il Sole 24 Ore daily that the regional administration is discussing the project to test the satellites produced by Starlink.
Butti said, “We're assessing with Starlink and other players the possibility of complementing existing infrastructure with satellites for the most remote areas.”
He further added, “In reference to Starlink in particular, we're currently speaking to some regions - in the north, center, and south of the country - to test a 'space-based service' for remote areas or areas without terrestrial infrastructure."
It was also reported that Starlink is already providing internet service to more than 50,000 customers in Italy.
Furthermore, Italy is currently working on the European Union post-pandemic recovery programme, to provide fixed-line internet speeds of at least 1 Gigabit per second by 2026 to all businesses and houses across the country.
The Italian media earlier in October reported that less than a third of the planned rollout had been completed.
To note, the state-backed fiber-optic firm Open Fiber and its rival FiberCop received 3.4 billion euros ($3.71 billion) in 2022 EU funds for providing full-fiber connectivity across Italy.
