BT delay Starlink based UK rural broadband service over controversial Musk
The CEO of BT Group, Allison Kirkby, has confirmed that last year’s “landmark agreement” to make Starlink’s mega constellation of ultrafast broadband satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) available to their consumer broadband customers in “rural and remote areas“ (here) has been put on pause over recent controversy around the company and boss Elon Musk.
The new service was originally due to launch around the end of 2026, although it remains unclear precisely how BT and EE would have positioned this given how consumers can already buy Starlink’s broadband plans directly and at some impressively affordable pricing (currently starting at £28 per month in some UK areas for c.100Mbps speeds). But we assume BT were planning something a bit different from simply reselling the same product.
At the time Allison Kirkby described the planned service launch as being a “giant leap for rural connectivity – allowing us to get fast and reliable in-home connectivity to our customers in some of the UK’s most rural and isolated areas and to bridge the digital divide better than ever“. However, a lot can happen in the space of a year, particularly, it seems, with regards to how much damage Elon Musk is capable of doing to his own brands.
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According to a new report in the Financial Times (paywall), BT’s plan to launch the service this year has been put on pause following the controversial disruptions in the satellite provider’s service to Ukraine, which hindered the country’s military and weakened its defence. Such actions have also made others around the world nervous about entrusting critical connectivity to a service that can change the rules for its customers on a political whim.
Kirkby confirmed to the newspaper that BT and EE’s Starlink-based broadband service for consumers is now ready to launch, yet instead of doing that they’ve decided to pause it while the company remains “cautious on how Starlink might be viewed at the moment, considering what happened in Ukraine a couple of weeks ago”.
Ukraine’s access to Starlink has since been fully restored, although it was a slow process, with neither Elon Musk nor US President Donald Trump seeming to accept much responsibility. “We will only launch it proactively when we feel the noise has died down a little bit on Elon Musk and Starlink as a result of the Ukraine thing,” said Kirkby. This is of course no guarantee that something similar won’t happen again in the future.
Despite all this, Kirkby said they still plan to launch the new service in the “coming months” and praised Starlink itself for being “far ahead” of its competitors and adding that BT were still “super excited” about their partnership. So, this is clearly more about perception than real principles.
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Interestingly, Kirkby finished up by stating that Starlink had “no intention” of launching a rival mobile service in the UK. Over in the USA Elon Musk is currently busy trying to build and launch their own direct Starlink Mobile product (here), although many doubts remain about the viability of their approach to replace traditional terrestrial mobile networks and towers (especially for indoor reach). At present Starlink prefers to work with mobile operators co-operatively to offer a cheap roaming add-on in the UK (e.g. O2 Satellite), but if Starlink Mobile works then we wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it launch in the UK too.
At present Starlink has an overall total of c.11,210 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for both broadband and roaming mobile services – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-550km. Residential users in the UK typically pay from c.£32-40 a month (dynamic pricing) for their 100Mbps unlimited data plan, which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity (sub-50ms). Faster speeds are available at extra cost.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Elon Musk unreliable?…… Never!
The better question is why they can’t use Eutelsat/OneWeb?
They’ve conducted trials with OneWeb before, but that network is many times smaller and lacks capacity. OneWeb has traditionally only sold consumer connectivity via a distributed Wi-Fi model, which has delivered mixed results in some of its deployments. OneWeb thus works better for government, security, aviation, military and enterprise than it does for serving individual households.
The GEN2 OneWeb satellites will improve matters, but that’s more about keeping up with demand than anything else.
The main problem I have with OneWeb is how much more expensive the hardware is. Their base subscription plans are significantly higher (along with paltry allowances) compared to Starlink but the OneWeb hardware is thousands, making there a huge barrier to entry.
I want them to be a success, but it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be competitive.
I’m sure the rural customers with terrible Internet currently are happy to wait for a better service so that people who wouldn’t buy the service anyway won’t have as much of a tantrum online (most likely on X, another Musk business).
I don’t like what happened in Ukraine, but I’m happy with the starlink service as it provides something no-one else can today.
“I don’t like what happened in Ukraine, but I’m willing to ignore my principles for the sake of convenience.”
There we go, I fixed your comment for you!
I will never get this row..
The CEO’s of other companies we used EVERy day have said much much worse – no one mantions is. And no I am not going to link – you have fingers and can Google it yourselves>
I have starlink. Powerwalls and a new Tesla. NO issues here.
“I am just jealous because the man has much more money than me and always will, and has done more for the world in 3 years than I could ever do. – so I will come out with some crap about principles to hide my shame, little brain and tiny cock
There we go “David”, I fixed your comment for you too!
Starlink is not a military company, it shouldn’t have been used for missile targeting . Ukraine has abused Starlink and was rightfully throttled
> Starlink is not a military company
Here’s the he thing, Ukraine is using Starshield, which is the military version of Starlink. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
@Simon: Projecting again, are we?
@Sam: SpaceX is a defence contractor – there is a military version of Starlink called Starshield, and SpaceX also sell launch services to the US military. Additionally, Musk sold Starlink to Ukraine for military use. I am not sure whether you are woefully misinformed or yet another Kremlin bot.
He is too unstable
Even ignoring the ethics, he will have a childish paddy and screw everyone over
“But we assume BT were planning something a bit different from simply reselling the same product.”
Yes. Starlink would simply replace the traditional access – it would be handed off into BT/EE’s core network. So you’d use their peering/transit arrangements.
Dear Christ…
Simon says:
November 10, 2026 at 5:13 pm
“I am just jealous because Musk has much more money than me and always will, and has done more for the world in 3 years than I could ever do
Wow, abandon all principals, all who enter here. The man, uses his obscene Billions, to pussh his highly dubious Far right agenda. But that’s water, off a ducks back to you isn’t it. Talk about, lack of moral clarity, it’s all about, you clearly isn’t it..