Officials from Elon Musk's satellite company are now in Dhaka
The government is getting ready to sign an agreement with Starlink, a global satellite internet service owned by Elon Musk's spacecraft manufacturing company, and two SpaceX representatives are scheduled to meet with the senior ICT Division officials.
Both Parnil Urdhwareshe, manager of worldwide licensing and activation at SpaceX, and Joel Meredith, manager of global government affairs at SpaceX, have reportedly already arrived at the ICT Division.
The meeting's agenda states that a memorandum of understanding for long-term cooperation on space tech development and capacity building of Bangladesh's young in related technologies will be signed by SpaceX and the ICT Division.
Zunaid Ahmed Palak, state minister for ICT, is expected to attend the meeting. The meeting agenda states that SpaceX representatives will be questioned about how Starlink can help disaster-prone and difficult-to-reach regions with internet connectivity, what would be the nationwide project to deploy Starlink to connect Bangladesh, and whether Bangladesh will receive special pricing to stay within the per MB or per GB price quoted by the government.
The representatives of the ICT Division are anticipated to question the representatives of SpaceX regarding their business strategy in Bangladesh, their investment, whether Starlink has any potential to manufacture equipment in Bangladesh, and whether they want to invest in hi-tech parks.
If Tesla decides to open factories in the nation, the host side would let the guests know that Bangladesh would be interested.
Elon Musk will also be invited by the ICT Division to meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in September in New York, visit Bangladesh to hold a similar discussion, or do a virtual encounter.
According to the Starlink website, consumers report an average download speed of over 100 MBPS and a usual range of 25 to 220 MBPS. According to reports, upload speeds typically range from 5 to 20 MBPS.
When Starlink pre-orders first became available in the nation, the website specified a $99 deposit cost whenever Bangladesh was chosen as the service address. The most current report, however, also states that Bangladeshi officials will be debating whether special pricing will be made available for this new internet service provider.