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Starlink launches in Cook Islands

12 Sep, 2024

Starlink officially launched its services in the Cook Islands yesterday, offering the most expensive residential plan in the South Pacific region but still competitive compared to other local providers.

Starlink was granted a full licence to provide local internet access service on June 1 for a fixed term of seven years.

The satellite internet constellation providing coverage to over 100 countries yesterday announced on its X, formerly Twitter, page: “Starlink’s high-speed internet is now available in the Cook Islands!” and shared a coverage map.

Residents can now purchase Starlink services directly from the company’s website.

The hardware, shipping, and handling costs for the Cook Islands come to $627, and the monthly service fee for unlimited internet is $202.

The monthly fee for Cook Islands is more than twice the service fee charged for other Pacific island nations, including Fiji and Tonga. It is also higher than New Zealand’s $159 and Australia’s A$139 per month.

However, locally, Starlink’s monthly fee for its “high speed internet” remains competitive compared to other internet providers, offering download speeds between 25 and 220 Mbps and upload speeds between 5 and 20 Mbps.

Bernard Hill, the chair of the Competition and Regulatory Authority, said that the Cook Islands was among the first countries in the region to permit Starlink operations.

“Cook Islands was definitely most open to this from the beginning. The reason that it has not been taken up by Starlink is simply because their priority was the other larger markets in terms of launching the local products,” Hill said.

“We made it clear to Starlink from the beginning that there was not going to be any substandard restrictions on their ability to operate here so in that respect we were the first.”

The Competition and Regulatory Authority granted Starlink a limited licence late last year, allowing roaming services in the Cook Islands. This enabled local residents to purchase the kit in New Zealand or Australia and operate it in the Cook Islands.

Hill said he authorised a full licence to a Singapore-based Starlink company that also supplies into New Zealand in June.

“The new licence also continues to authorise the roaming that has already taken place which is important because what’s happened with other areas including Australia is that the regulators have restricted roaming and Starlink has turned off regional roaming in Australia which affects some of the Pacific islands because they use Australian gear,” Hill said.

“But here we have licenced it anyway so they are not going to turn off the gear that you bought in New Zealand.

“You just need to go online, buy one and gets delivered to you – there is no need for any kind of local activity because their marketing is international really.”

Hill added that Starlink was “a pretty important addition” to the country’s connectivity.

“We still need to have terrestrial provider like Vodafone that’s very important and we need (network) redundancy, need resilience because people are becoming more and more dependent on communications.”

Cook Islands News has contacted other internet providers, including Vodafone Cook Islands, for comments on how Starlink’s entry would affect their business and what they were doing to remain competitive.

According to Hill, there is always a place in the market for niche players like Kuk I Net and VakaNet.

“They are able to offer that kind of customer service which differentiate them from others and certainly Starlink,” he said.

“As we all know customer focus has not necessarily been Vodafone’s strength, they’re focused on making sure their network works and they haven’t always had to worry so much about customer relations, so it’s a bit of a learning curve for them.

“The competition from Starlink is more significant for Vodafone.”

Written by Rashneel Kumar | Published in Cook Islands News.