SpaceX’s satellite Internet unit Starlink is planning to deploy a ground station site outside Tampa, Florida.

As reported by BizJournal and others, SpaceX filed plans with Manatee County last week for a satellite communications facility in Myakka City.

The less-than-one-acre site, at 3350 County Road 675, would host 40 satellite antennas and an equipment rack, according to documents submitted to the county.

According to BJ, the site is owned by Cristian and Natalia Oslobanu of Bradenton. They purchased the vacant agricultural land in 2013 for $234,000, according to Manatee County property records. The entire parcel totals 18.8 acres and has a 570-square-foot building on it.

The permit calls for a fenced-in gravel compound, a 55kW generator, and a single headend equipment rack. The permits estimate the project value at $37,500.

Starlink has dozens of ground station sites worldwide and continues to build out new ones. The company recently filed for permission for a ground station deployments in County Mayo, Ireland, and Leuk, Switzerland.

Starlink community gateway goes live in Tuvalu

Tuvalu Telecom is using Starlink to connect the island nation to the rest of the world.

“Exciting times for our people, Government of Tuvalu, and my incredible TTC team!,” Tenanoia Veronica Simona, CEO at Tuvalu Telecommunications, said last week. “The Starlink gateway installation is now complete and will be ready to deliver faster, more reliable Internet in the coming days!”

Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at monitoring firm Kentik, noted this week that Starlink has started routing through Tuvalu, using a Tuvalu Telecom IP prefix/AS for IP transit.

The Tuvalu Department of ICT and Starlink previously announced that Starlink had gone live on the island nation back in January. Tuvalu Telecom has announced that Kacific-based services for customers in Tuvalu ceased on 30 June 2025.

While Starlink can offer services directly to consumers through small antenna, Starlink community gateways offer Internet transit to other Internet Service Providers, providing “fiber-like speeds” to communities.

The satellite firm says the service – which requires larger radome-clad antennae compared to the smaller consumer flat panels – offers speeds of up to 10Gbps up and down. Prices for the gateways start at $75,000/Gbps per month with a one-time upfront cost of $1.25 million.

Starlink first deployed a community gateway to the island of Unalaska, Alaska, for local provider OptimERA xG.

As noted by Kentick, the Central Pacific island nation of Nauru launched its own Starlink community gateway in December. According to Kentik, Nauru’s Telikom (aka Neotel) exclusively uses Starlink for transit and claims to provide the island’s first and only nationwide 5G+ network service.

Kentik noted Broadband Systems Corporation of Rwanda, Kativik Regional Government of northern Canada, and FSM Telecom in Micronesia have also deployed Starlink gateways.

The Kativik Regional Government (KRG) of Canada signed a deal last year with Starlink to build a Starlink community gateway as the primary source of high-speed internet until the upcoming EAUFON 3 domestic subsea cable is completed. The gateway has seemingly since gone live.

Construction work on the Tuvalu Vaka subsea cable started in December 2024. The project, a collaboration between Tuvalu Telecom and Google, is a branching unit of Google’s planned Bulikula cable.

It is the nation’s first subsea cable. Tuvalu has traditionally relied on satellite connectivity from the likes of Kacific.