Taiwan opens door to Starlink – but now it must wait to see if Elon Musk is ready to enter
Changes to the telecoms law remove barriers to foreign satellite internet firms and could help protect communication networks during a war
On Tuesday, the island’s legislature approved an amendment to the Telecommunications Management Act that would exempt satellite communications operators from foreign ownership caps and the requirement to have a Taiwanese chair.
The exemptions – which are subject to security and public interest checks – are widely seen as removing the biggest legal obstacle that has prevented Starlink, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s firm SpaceX, from operating in Taiwan.
Negotiations with the island’s regulators collapsed in 2021 over the company’s insistence on operating a wholly owned local business.
For Taiwan, the significance went far beyond attracting another telecommunications provider, according to Chieh Chung, a research fellow at the Association of Strategic Foresight, a military think tank in Taipei.
Taiwan already works with Britain’s OneWeb to provide low Earth orbit satellite services, but Chieh said this would probably only be enough to support core military communications and those of some government agencies during wartime.