¿Cómo utilizarán las comunidades rurales en Chile SpaceX Starlink?

¿Cómo utilizarán Internet las personas en las ciudades de prueba durante este estudio piloto de un año y cómo afectará a las personas y las organizaciones?

Sotomó está a 3-5 horas en barco y en coche desde
el aeropuerto más cercano.

La Subsecretaría de Telecomunicaciones de Chile ha comenzado un estudio piloto de un año del servicio de Internet satelital Starlink de SpaceX . No sé cuántas ubicaciones de prueba están planeando, pero se han seleccionado las dos primeras. La semana pasada hablé del primero , la escuela John F. Kennedy en Sotomó, un pueblo aislado a 41.6 ° Sur en un fiordo en la Región de los Lagos de Chile, y el segundo será en Caleta Sierra en la costa a unas 1.200 millas al norte de Sotomó. SpaceX también está considerando un estudio piloto europeo en Georgia y quizás (con suerte) en otros.

Estos estudios piloto brindan la oportunidad de aprender qué aplicaciones quieren y usan las personas en una ubicación remota recién conectada, y de estudiar el impacto de Internet en las personas, las organizaciones y la sociedad en la comunidad.

En los primeros días de Internet, mis colegas y yo utilizamos un marco de seis dimensiones para evaluar su estado en los países en desarrollo, y una de esas dimensiones era la absorción sectorial: el grado en que se utilizaba Internet para los negocios, la educación, la salud, la administración pública y después de una entrevista con un sabio profesor de la India, agregué entretenimiento.

La terminal Starlink en Sotomó está instalada en un edificio escolar, por lo que la primera aplicación será la educación básica. Los niños ya han comenzado a utilizar material educativo en línea. Cuando se le preguntó al profesor a cargo de la Escuela Kennedy, Javier de la Barra, cómo veía la escuela usando el enlace de Internet, respondió que, entre otras cosas, esperaba usarlo para su desarrollo profesional .

Si bien una sola conexión Starlink no puede admitir la educación en línea interactiva simultánea para toda una comunidad, el material interactivo descargable como el de Learning Equality y otro material educativo grabado (definido en términos generales) se puede descargar y servir localmente. Será interesante ver a qué material educativo se accede durante el año del estudio piloto, quién accede a él y qué piensan de su valor.

Hablé con Claudio Fuentes, cuya familia opera un lugar de veraneo y una granja de acuicultura en Sotomó. Ahora es profesor en Gales, pero regresa a Sotomó todos los años y pasó todos sus veranos allí antes de mudarse a Europa. Una de las cosas que me dijo fue que también hay una clínica en la escuela. Starlink permitirá la recuperación de información médica, la consulta médica remota y la telemedicina y, como el profesor de la Barra, las personas que trabajan en la clínica pueden utilizar Internet para el desarrollo profesional.

El negocio es otro de los sectores que medimos, y el profesor Fuentes me dijo que los dos principales negocios en Sotomó son los pequeños centros turísticos y la acuicultura: cultivar “semillas” de mejillones para venderlos a otros acuicultores y criar mejillones adultos. Su familia hace ambas cosas, y tienen un sitio web simple para su resort y pueden comunicarse con clientes y proveedores usando teléfonos móviles, pero dice que los datos móviles son muy costosos para la gente de Sotomó, y principalmente usan sus teléfonos para comunicarse con cada uno. otro. Además, de la Barra dice la señal es irregular y los residentes usan sus teléfonos asomándose por las ventanas o remando hacia la bahía. ¿Podría una conexión a Internet rápida y estable permitir a un resort mantener un sitio web y un sistema de reservas elaborado? ¿Podría un cultivador de mejillones buscar y hablar con proveedores y clientes y encontrar información sobre investigaciones y técnicas en el campo?

Además de los procedimientos operativos, se puede imaginar que tanto las empresas como la población en general utilicen Internet para recuperar información gubernamental y presentar impuestos, solicitar licencias y realizar otras transacciones gubernamentales.

Con un solo enlace de Internet, el entretenimiento individual, como el material educativo, se descargará principalmente: películas, telenovelas, juegos, etc. Sospecho que se desarrollará una sólida "red de zapatillas" sin conexión con personas intercambiando archivos en unidades flash. Esto se puede hacer dentro de una comunidad como Sotomó o en una escala más amplia. El ejemplo más importante que conozco es El Paquete Semanal, un paquete semanal de entretenimiento, noticias, software, etc., que circula por Cuba. El Paquete podría ser el empleador privado más grande de Cuba y puede ver el contenido de una semana típica aquí .

Si bien la mayor parte del entretenimiento se descargará, puede haber ocasiones para que la comunidad lo vea fuera del horario escolar, por ejemplo, ver partidos de fútbol los fines de semana o transmitir películas a una pantalla grande durante las noches.

Cuando hicimos nuestros primeros estudios sobre Internet, pasamos por alto por completo el potencial de Internet como medio de noticias: había pocos periódicos y revistas en línea y no había blogs ni redes sociales en ese momento. Será interesante ver qué fuentes de noticias decide descargar y poner a disposición de la comunidad. Esto es particularmente importante en este momento, ya que Chile está atravesando un acalorado debate político y se está redactando una nueva constitución. La restricción de la conectividad limitada podría ser una ventaja, ya que las redes sociales interactivas y personales, han sido causa de división y de  informaciónes falsas. En cambio, la comunidad tendrá que ponerse de acuerdo sobre una lista de fuentes de noticias descargadas, y ese proceso en sí mismo podría conducir a un diálogo positivo.

He especulado sobre algunas posibles aplicaciones que podríamos ver en Sotomó y las otras ciudades piloto: los servicios y el contenido que pueden producir y consumir. Estoy seguro de que habrá otros en los que no he pensado, Sotomó no es Los Ángeles. Lo más importante que aprenderemos es cómo, después de un año, la gente ha utilizado Internet y cómo ha impactado a las personas y organizaciones en las ciudades de prueba.

Actualización 8/25/2001

La versión original en inglés de esta publicación está aquí.

How will rural Chileans use SpaceX Starlink?

How will the people in the test towns use the Internet during this year-long pilot study and how will it impact individuals and organizations?

Sotomó is 3-5 hours by boat and car from the nearest airport.

The Chilean Undersecretary of Telecommunications (SUBTEL) has begun a year-long pilot study of SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service. I don't know how many test locations they are planning, but the first two have been selected. Last week I discussed the first, the John F. Kennedy school in Sotomó, an isolated town at 41.6° South on a fjord in Chile's Lake Region, and the second will be in Caleta Sierra on the coast about 1,200 miles north of Sotomó. SpaceX is also considering a European pilot study in Georgia and perhaps (hopefully) others.

These pilot studies provide an opportunity to learn what applications the people in a newly connected, remote location want and use and to study the impact of the Internet on individuals, organizations, and society in the community. 

In the early days of the Internet, my colleagues and I used a six-dimension framework for assessing its state in developing nations and one of those dimensions was sectoral absorption -- the extent to which the Internet was being used for business, education, health care, public administration, and, after an interview with a wise Indian professor, I added entertainment.

The Starlink terminal in Sotomó is installed in a school building, so the first application will be grammar school education. The children have already begun using online educational material and when the teacher in charge of the Kennedy school Javier de la Barra was asked how he saw the school using the Internet link he replied that, among other things, he looked forward to using it for professional development. 

While a single Starlink connection cannot support simultaneous interactive online education for an entire community, downloadable interactive material like that of Learning Equality and other recorded educational material (broadly defined) can be downloaded and served locally. It will be interesting to see what educational material is accessed during the year of the pilot study, who accesses it, and what they think of its value.

I spoke with Claudio Fuentes whose family operates a summer resort and an aquaculture farm in Sotomó. He is now a professor in Wales but returns to Sotomó every year and spent all his summers there before moving to Europe. One of the things he told me was that there is also a clinic at the schoolhouse. Starlink will enable medical information retrieval, remote medical consultation, and telemedicine and, like professor de la Barra, people working at the clinic can use the Internet for professional development. 

Business is another one of the sectors we measured and professor Fuentes told me that the two major businesses in Sotomó are small tourist resorts and aquaculture -- raising baby mussel "seeds" for sale to other aquafarmers and raising adult mussels. His family does both and they have a simple Web site for their resort and can communicate with customers and suppliers using mobile phones, but he says mobile data is very expensive for the people of Sotomó and they mainly use their phones to communicate with each other. Furthermore, de la Barra says the signal is patchy and residents get on their phones by leaning out windows or paddling out into the bay. Might a fast, stable Internet connection enable a resort to maintain an elaborate Web site and reservation system? Might a mussel farmer search for and talk with suppliers and customers and find information on research and techniques in the field?

In addition to operating procedures, one can envision both businesses and the general population using the Internet to retrieve government information and file taxes, apply for licenses and conduct other government transactions.

With only a single Internet link, individual entertainment, like educational material, will mostly be downloaded -- movies, telenovelas, games, etc. I suspect that a robust "sneakernet" will develop offline with people exchanging files on flash drives. This can be done within a community like Sotomó or on a wider scale. The foremost example I know of is El Paquete Semanal, a weekly package of entertainment, news, software, etc. that circulates throughout Cuba. El Paquete might be Cuba's largest private employer and you can see the contents of a typical week here. 

While most entertainment will be downloaded, there may be occasions for community viewing outside of school hours, for example, watching soccer games on weekends or streaming movies to a large display during the evenings.

When we did our early Internet studies, we totally overlooked the potential of the Internet as a news medium -- there were few online papers and magazines and no blogs or social media at the time. It will be interesting to see what news sources the community decides to download and make available. This is particularly important at this time since Chile is undergoing heated political debate and a new constitution is being written. The constraint of limited connectivity might be an advantage in the case of news since personal, interactive social media, a major source of division and false information, will not be practical. Instead, the community will have to agree on a slate of downloaded news sources and that process in itself might lead to positive dialog.

I've speculated on some possible applications we might see in Sotomó and the other pilot cities -- the services and content they may produce and consume. I am sure there will be others I have not thought of -- Sotomó is not Los Angeles. The most important things we will learn are how, after a year, the people have used the Internet and how it has impacted individuals and organizations in the test towns.

Update 8/25/2021

For a lightly-edited Spanish language version of this post, click here.

SpaceX Starlink comes to South America

This one-year pilot study in rural Chile will be productive and successful.

Starlink antenna on the roof of the
John F. Kennedy school

SpaceX has roughly 90,000 Starlink beta test customers in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand and now they have one in South America --  in Sotomó, an isolated town at 41.6° South in Chile's Lake Region. Chile's second terminal will be online at a school in Caleta Sierra in a few days and other pilot locations will follow.  

Twenty families live in Sotomó and it is only accessible by private boats or subsidized services that navigate the Reloncaví Estuary on which it is located. The town has electricity about 12 hours a day thanks to a diesel generator installed by the Lake Region government in 2019. 

Javier de la Barra, the teacher in charge of the seven-student John F. Kennedy school where the terminal has been installed, said the service will be available to community members as well as students. Tablets are being provided for the students and he expects Internet connectivity will enrichen and improve the curriculum and student experience and, perhaps more important, he expects that it will improve his ability as an educator.

The John F. Kennedy school in Sotomó

My first reaction was that that sounds like a lot to expect from a single 1-200 Mbps Internet connection, but then I remembered that this a school with seven students and a teacher who is motivated to improve his ability as an educator. Add a local-area network with a server for downloaded courseware like that of the Khan Academy or other teaching material and provide technical and pedagogic support and this sounds like a promising pilot project. It will be most interesting to see what sort of procedures, software and curricular innovation is developed around a single link to the Internet and if it is replicated, by the online community of educators like Javier de la Barra.

Furthermore, speed and latency will improve with time as SpaceX upgrades its software and, in the long run, the satellite constellation. My guess is that the first equipment upgrade will be a new generator or larger diesel fuel tank so they can be online, perhaps downloading content, more than 12 hours a day.

It will also be interesting to hear how the community members use their access. I don't know anything about the Sotomó economy so can't speculate on business applications, but there is at least one tourism business, Termas de Sotomó (Sotomó Hot Springs), which already has a Web site. (Perhaps it uses a geosynchronous satellite ISP). In addition to business applications, I'll bet a lot of movies and other entertainment content will be downloaded and a thriving sneaker net -- sharing files on flash drives -- will evolve. How long will it be before someone develops a system that takes requests for unattended downloads?  (For an idea of the breadth of material that can circulate on a sneakernet, see this look at the contents of one week of Cuba's "weekly package").

In the early days of the Internet, my colleagues and I studied its diffusion and application in developing nations, including Chile. Sotomó and other pilots present us with a fresh opportunity to study the applications and social and individual impact of today's Internet on a new, "greenfield" community.

At the time of our early studies, Chile was arguably the most advanced networking nation in Latin America and Chile's GDP per capita is second only to Uraguay in South America and 50% greater than that of third-place Argentina. Furthermore, the government and telecommunications industry recognize Chile's significant digital divide and are committed to rectifying it. (This was not lost on SpaceX -- they established a Chilean foreign affiliate company in July 2019). Given that background, I would not be surprised to see SpaceX Starlink become part of Chile's future rural connectivity infrastructure.

The opening ceremony for the Sotomó project was attended by the Chilean Minister of Transport and Telecommunications, Gloria Hutt, who said:

The arrival of Starlink in Sotomó marks a before-and-after in terms of digital inclusion for our country. This revolutionary technology will allow us to bring high-speed connection to the most extreme points of our immense and varied geography, democratizing internet access and all the benefits it brings in favor of multiple areas of our lives.

That statement is reminiscent of the rosy vision that many, including me, had in the early, academic years of the Internet, but we were naive. We have since learned that the Internet enables Nigerian princes, fake news, filter bubbles, etc. along with the good stuff.

Chilean prosperity, combined with economic inequality (the Chilean Gini coefficient is fourth highest in South America), has led to violent protests and deep political division. Chile should heed the experience of the United States and other nations and be aware of the social and political risks that may attend enhanced rural connectivity.

I don't want to end on a negative note. As Minister Hutt pointed out, rural connectivity and reduction of the digital divide, will in itself diminish the economic and cultural inequality at the heart of Chilean unrest.

Update 8/11/2021

I spoke with someone from Sotomó today and learned that there is also a clinic in the school building -- paving the way for medical information retrieval, remote medical consultation, and telemedicine.

Update 8/20/2021

For a lightly edited machine translation of this post into Spanish, click here and let me know of corrections to the translation.