November 17, at a briefing at the Digital and Space Ministry, Olzhas Kabenov, the Head of the Monitoring and Project Development Department for Wireless Communications at the Telecommunications Committee of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovations and Aerospace Industry (MDDIAI), shared updates on the process of connecting rural schools to Starlink, QazMonitor reports citing Kazinform.
Kabenov mentioned that 10 schools are currently connected to the Starlink internet in test mode. Once necessary amendments to licensing are made, it will be officially licensed.
The speaker expressed confidence that this endeavor would encourage healthy competition within the market.
"In addition to Starlink, other providers, such as OneWeb and SES, plan to initiate operations in Kazakhstan starting next year," he stated.
During the briefing, journalists asked about personal use of Starlink internet services in Kazakhstan.
"People who have already acquired it [Starlink Internet – QM] will be able to use it after the changes to legislation are made. Before the changes, individuals [that use and distribute Starlink Internet – QM] will receive a warning for the first offense, and after that, a fine of 10 MCI [equal to 34,500 tenge in 2023]," Dias Tolegenov, the Head of the Telecommunications Control Department, explained.
Earlier it was reported that Starlink would provide internet access to two thousand rural schools. During the meeting with President Tokayev at Digital Bridge 2023, Loren Dreyer, the Deputy Chairman of SpaceX, agreed to connect 2,000 remote rural schools to the internet using SpaceX Starlink technology.
