The internet regulator has decided to form a committee to formulate a guideline for satellite internet service, a major step that will pave the way for the entry of Elon Musk's Starlink and other similar companies to Bangladesh.

In a recent internal meeting, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) approved the formulation of the committee comprising officials of its different divisions to prepare the guideline for internet services through non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) satellites.

The NGSO satellites are not stationary relative to Earth's surface and they orbit the Earth at a lower altitude and faster than geostationary satellites.

Deployed in large constellations for global coverage and backups to prevent downtime in case of failures, such satellites enable processing high volumes of data with minimal delay alongside improved coverage in polar regions.

Companies like SpaceX, OneWeb and Amazon are developing such constellations to provide satellite communication around the world.

In December last year the government had decided to award a licence to Starlink, which is operated by American aerospace company SpaceX, the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk.

"In principle, I have told the BTRC to provide a licence to Starlink," Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for telecom and ICT, told The Daily Star at that time.

"We want to provide internet services for people in cities and villages equally. This will ensure internet connection to remote areas, especially villages, chars and islands," he said.

According to the BTRC's documents, not only Starlink, its rival companies OneWeb and Amazon are also maintaining contact with Bangladesh.

The committee decided to be formed recently will see if such internet services are feasible in the Bangladesh market.

Besides, it will evaluate the impacts, be it negative or positive, of such services in the local internet service market.

In Bangladesh, four telecom operators provide mobile internet service while 3,000 small and medium companies offer broadband internet services.

There are 13 crore internet subscribers in Bangladesh and 90 percent of them are mobile users.

However, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the number of internet users stood at 41 percent for people aged above 15 in 2023.

As mobile internet and broadband have already permeated almost all areas of Bangladesh, commercial success of satellite internet is likely to be limited.

The cost of the Starlink internet is also prohibitively high in the context of Bangladesh, costing about US $120 per month in most locations while the initial hardware costs reach up to $599, according to its website.

In case of the local internet service providers (ISPs), 5mbps broadband costs about Tk 500 ($5) per month while mobile internet costs between Tk 400 to Tk 500 ($4 to $5) per 30GB.

Earlier, SpaceX expressed its intention to launch Starlink services in Bangladesh and its officials met with multiple government entities to this end in June last year.

Joel Meredith, manager for global government affairs at SpaceX, and Parnil Urdhwareshe, manager for global licensing and activation, gave presentations on its features.

In a demonstration to Bangladesh Satellite Company, Starlink's internet and download speeds reached about 500mbps, according to Chairman Shahjahan Mahmood.

Download speeds reached 150mbps in another demonstration to the ICT Division.

Bangladesh Satellite Company collected five Starlink terminals (Starlink Kits) to analyse the technology and its performance in rain, fog and inclement weather.

SpaceX, currently worth over $150 billion, provides satellite internet coverage to more than 60 countries with about 4,519 Starlink satellites currently in orbit.

The British company OneWeb also sent a few hundred satellites to space.

Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, is expanding into space ventures with plans of launching over 3,200 satellites in the coming years to provide global internet coverage.