On January 7, 2025, Bloomberg reported that Italy is considering a €1.5 billion investment in Starlink services to enhance secure connectivity for government operations. SpaceX’s Starlink constellation of 7,000 satellites in low Earth orbit provides high-speed, secure internet access to remote areas beyond the reach of traditional land-based networks. The news sent ripples through the European space community. After years of struggling to push its own secure connectivity initiative, IRIS2, across the finish line, Europe now faces the prospect of one of its largest economies turning to an American private company for critical infrastructure. While Italy’s decision is likely driven by the need for a reliable backup during natural disasters, a national outsourcing deal with Starlink raises urgent questions about internet sovereignty, economic independence, and global power dynamics. At what point does reliance on a foreign satellite network blur the line between partnership and dependency? And when does a sovereign state risk becoming a client state?

The assertion that Starlink, with its upcoming 1-terabit-per-second (Tbps) Gen 3 satellites, could turn every country into a client state, is not far-fetched. Each Gen3 satellite will deliver impressive capabilities, boasting a 1 Tbps downlink speed and up to 160 Gbps uplink capacity—offering more than a tenfold improvement in downlink performance and roughly 24 times the uplink capacity of its predecessors (Italy’s current download speed is averagely 83.5 megabit-per-second, Mbps). By 2027, these high-capacity satellites are expected to dominate Starlink’s constellation, presenting a cost-effective alternative to traditional fiber-optic networks for residential, municipal, and commercial connectivity.

Fiber-optic infrastructure on the other hand has long been considered the gold standard for high-speed internet due to its capacity for low latency and virtually unlimited scalability. However, its deployment costs are substantial, particularly in remote or rural areas. In contrast, Starlink’s satellite-based connectivity offers a cost-effective solution to deliver broadband to underserved regions. Elon Musk has claimed that the “last mile” cost of fiber-optic installations far exceeds the expense of deploying Starlink ground stations and satellites. This is especially true in areas where trenching and installing cables is logistically complex and economically prohibitive.

For example, installing fiber-optic infrastructure typically costs between $3,000 and $4,000 per building in urban areas and significantly........

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