Elon Musk has come to the rescue of a remote west Cork community without broadband.
Business owner Emma Fitzpatrick had started a campaign to bring 'Space X' satellite internet to her local area of Knockawaddra.
It seems as though the tech billionaire may have been listening, as his representative got in touch with her just hours after her Newstalk interview last week.
Emma told Newstalk Breakfast the company's Starlink broadband is now being made available to them.
"We are a small community of residents and micro-business owners, and we're basically in what's called a broadband deadzone.
"We have launched a campaign to improve our situation - we got handwritten signatures, we went online, we appealed to TDs and local councillors.
"We were petitioning the NBI [National Broadband Ireland] to rollout fibre [broadband] to our area, and we weren't being given a date as to when it might reach us.
"So kind of in a desperate plea, on a whim, we contacted Elon Musk via Tesla to see if he would like to pilot his SpaceX Starlink with our community.
"Just to see what were our chances if we called out, we kind of reached for the stars.
"And we were completely surprised that we actually got a call from his representative 12 hours after the show.
"So definitely Newstalk helped to promote our cause".
She said the system is to be trialled over the next few weeks.
"So it all happened very quickly, and we are stunned - absolutely stunned.
"So surprised that it took reaching out to Silicon Valley for our broadband issues to be resolved.
"We're absolutely delighted".
An in-space photo of 60 stacked Starlink satellites orbiting Earth prior to deployment. Picture by: Starlink/SpaceXWhat is Starlink?
Musk's SpaceX is leveraging its experience in building rockets and spacecraft to deploy a broadband internet system using satellites orbiting the Earth.
It says Starlink is ideally suited for areas of the globe where connectivity has "typically been a challenge".
"Unbounded by traditional ground infrastructure, Starlink can deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable or completely unavailable", it adds.
During beta testing, users can expect to see speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months.
The company says that data speed, latency and uptime will improve as it launches more satellites, installs more ground stations and improves its networking software.
