Here’s how Starlink accelerates in Italy with Telespazio (Leonardo) in spite of Tim
The Meloni government applauds the agreement between Telespazio and SpaceX to integrate the Starlink satellite Internet satellites into the offer of the space joint venture between Leonardo and Thales. Meanwhile, on the regulatory dispute with Tim over the sharing of spectrum data, Starlink says that "there is no interference". Facts and insights
Starlink accelerates in Italy thanks to Telespazio.
The joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%) “among the main operators in the world in the field of satellite solutions and services, announces that it has signed an agreement with SpaceX for the marketing of Starlink services”. This was announced last week by the Telespazio company led by Gabriele Pieralli with a press release .
Starlink is the satellite constellation of Elon Musk's aerospace company designed to provide broadband internet services around the world, particularly in rural areas and poorly served by other networks.
Not only that, the agreement with Telespazio comes after Starlink's approaches with the Italian government for the diffusion of ultra-broadband (and the dispute over frequencies between Tim and the company headed by Elon Musk) in the country.
The Prime Minister applauded the agreement between SpaceX and Telespazio: “It's excellent news. Hoping for ever greater collaboration, I take this opportunity to extend my congratulations to Elon Musk for having successfully concluded the Starship test", wrote President Meloni on on
Starlink had recently complained that the introduction of fast internet in Italy is being hindered by the country's largest telephone operator with possible repercussions for services in southern Europe and northern Africa. But now sources close to SpaceX's satellite Internet division tell Startmag that "there is no interference" with Tim.
All the details.
THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN TELESPAZIO AND SPACEX
Thanks to the agreement with SpaceX, "Telespazio will be able to integrate Starlink into its global hybrid connectivity network, created with satellite and terrestrial solutions, capable of guaranteeing reliable and resilient communications services, fixed and mobile, with global coverage", it is written in the note of the joint venture of Leonardo and Thales.
STARLINK IN ITALY
As Reuters recalls, SpaceX's Starlink owns about 60% of the approximately 7,500 satellites orbiting Earth and is a dominant player in the satellite Internet sector. To date, SpaceX has launched over 6,000 Starlink satellites and continues to expand the constellation.
According to data released by AgCom at the end of last year, around 30 thousand satellite connections were activated in Italy, most of which were Starlink.
The company recently launched a new economical Starlink subscription in Italy, at the price of 29 euros per month, which is in addition to the standard one of 40 euros per month. A move to win over more users… and more.
BOOSTER WITH TELESPAZIO, JV OF LEONARDO, STATE OWNERSHIP
“At the moment Starlink is already available in Italy for any consumer user, but the agreement with Telespazio will focus on providing the service to business users and institutions. According to the latest published data, Starlink currently has almost 40 thousand subscribers to the service in our country, a rather low number but in line with the spread of satellite connectivity in Italy", Astrospace recalled last week.
Therefore, the agreement with the joint venture 33% owned by the French Thales and 67% by Leonardo, an aerospace and defense company owned by the Mef (owner of 30.2% of the capital), was providential for Starlink.
THE GOVERNMENT IS ENTHUSIASTIC
“Excellent news”, defined the agreement between Telespazio and Starlink by President Meloni, who welcomed Mr Musk as her guest at Atreju . “The agreement signed between Telespazio and SpaceX for the marketing of Starlink services in Italy represents a step forward towards the country's connectivity”, commented the Minister of Business and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, again on X. “Today it is of fundamental importance to reach even those areas of the territory less covered by communication services and as a government we are working to improve the competitiveness of businesses,” added Urso.
Also on .
THE ROLE OF ANDREA STROPPA
Andrea Stroppa, now journalistically defined as "Musk's ambassador in Italy", also contributed to building relations between SpaceX and the executive.
As Il Sole 24 Ore reported in recent months, following the American aerospace company in these institutional appointments is Andrea Stroppa, advisor of SpaceX (in the photo together with Elon Musk and Giorgia Meloni at Atreju): Stroppa "also closely follows the regulatory dispute with Tim at the center of a technical table at the Ministry of Business".
And last April , Stroppa on “Thank you,” Musk writes, commenting on a post which reports the passage from the interview in which Salvini states: “Having someone like Musk investing in Italy is important. And for Italy it is a great moment." In particular, the deputy prime minister defines Musk as "a fascinating person" and underlines how "as Minister of Infrastructure it would be very convenient for me to have Starlink in currently disconnected areas", referring precisely to the division of the SpaceX company that provides satellite Internet connectivity.
Without forgetting that in those days the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport had received SpaceX, as SpaceX's Italian advisor Stroppa also announced on the X platform .
After a few months Salvini was therefore satisfied, while the same cannot be said for the telco operators.
And TIM?
As mentioned at the beginning, in April Starlink complained that the introduction of fast internet in Italy is being hindered by the country's largest telephone operator with possible repercussions for services in southern Europe and northern Africa. Bloomberg had reported it, citing a complaint presented by Starlink to the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy (Mimit) headed by Adolfo Urso, in which Musk's company states that Telecom Italia for months did not comply with the regulations requiring the sharing of data of the spectrum to avoid frequency interference. SpaceX also filed a similar complaint with Agcom, the telecommunications regulatory authority.
Therefore, if the situation remained unresolved, Starlink would be forced to move investments from Italy to other European countries, Musk's company had warned.
Thus Minister Urso committed himself to «finding a solution that can allow the best coexistence of the two technologies» by proposing a table at Mimit which was resolved with the sending of the technical data to Mimit to resolve once and for all the dispute over frequencies between Tim and the company headed by Elon Musk. For its part, Tim has made it known that it is open to the minister's proposal for a discussion with Starlink.
April 24 was the deadline set by Mimit for sending preliminary technical data to the start of a simulation to estimate possible interference between Musk and Tim's satellite Internet service.
Meanwhile, sources close to Starlink confirm to Startmag : "There is no interference."
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/starlink-telespazio-leonardo-tim/ on Thu, 13 Jun 2024 08:08:36 +0000.