Elon Musk's satellites beam internet into Chilean boy's life

For decades, its inhabitants have survived by catching mussels and fish to sell at market, a five-hour round-trip away by boat.

Now, it is one of two places in Chile to be chosen for a pilot project run by billionaire Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, to receive free internet for a year.

Since October, it has been offering a 'Better Than Nothing Beta' program to subscribers in the United States, while also running pilot trials in other countries. In Chile, a second antennae will be installed in Caleta Sierra, a small fishing port close to the arid northern deserts.

The plan is key to generating the funds that SpaceX needs to fund Musk's dream of developing a new rocket capable of flying paying customers to the moon and eventually trying to colonize Mars.

For Diego, aged 7, stable internet is a dream enough.

"I really like the internet because we can do homework," he said. "It's faster so we can do more of it."

Starlink did not reply to a Reuters request for comment. SpaceX chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell said in a July statement about the Chilean pilot: "Starlink was designed for remote communities like those in Caleta Sierra and Sotomo. High-speed connectivity can have a transformational impact on these communities."

Diego's favorite subject at school is math. He wants to be a sailor, and loves to go out on his father Carlos's fishing boat.

Carlos, 40, has more ambitious plans for his son and hopes the window onto the world the new internet connection will give him will broaden his horizons.

He takes Diego to school daily by boat, often battling wind and rain to get him there.

"I didn't have the option of going to school so you do it whatever the conditions, good or bad weather or pandemic, even if it's difficult," he said.

"If he has a good education, he has that option and is eager to do it, then you have all the hopes of any father, that maybe one day all the children from Sotomo can go on to professional jobs."

Using tablets provided by the education ministry, the school's seven pupils can now tap into online learning material, watch films, do virtual museum visits and try out video calls to children in other schools.

Their sole teacher at Sotomo's John F Kennedy School, Javier de la Barra, said he also looked forward to using it for professional development.

The signal is received via a satellite dish installed on the school's roof, which transmits through a Wi-Fi device to most of its facilities and outdoor patio. Eventually, the plan is to extend it to the rest of the hamlet.

It only works from noon to midnight, because of a constrained supply of diesel to the generator that supplies power to Sotomo.

Nonetheless, said de la Barra, it is a significant advance on the patchy mobile internet signal that residents currently can get on their phones by leaning out of windows or paddling out into the bay.

The Starlink antennae was installed in July and inaugurated earlier this month in a ceremony attended by Transport and Telecommunications Minister Gloria Hutt.

She said she hoped Starlink would prove key in bridging Chile and the wider region's digital divide - an issue laid bare with the advent of coronavirus lockdowns that left people without good internet struggling to work or study.