The best gift I've ever received has to be a bike when I was younger, a pedal bike.

It was a sort of slick little road bike and I remember it was all like, it was so, it was all wrapped up,

it was so obvious what it was obviously because nothing's shaped like a bike and I had a little ribbon on it and I was so guest.

For that was a life changer and I'm still sort of big on cycling around my area now so for that one change me a little.

Enjoy in every sip with red cups now back at Starbucks.

This winter a massive underwater volcano erupted near the Pacific Island Nation of Tonga.

In this cell phone video from Fiji people are staring at clouds and ash and then a shock wave hits.

The volcano was massive, it killed at least four people and triggered a tsunami and on January 15th when the eruption reached its climax it also disconnected Tonga from the outside world.

The volcano erupted and almost immediately severed the only internet cable that connects the archipelago of Tonga to the global internet.

That's Megan Tobin, a reporter for the website Rest of World.

There is a cable that connects the nation to the wider worldwide web and there's also a cable inside the nation that connects a couple of island groups.

Both of them were severed by the eruption and then the country spent about a week with no internet whatsoever.

On January 21st Elon Musk tweeted, could people from Tonga let us know if it is important for SpaceX to send over Starlink terminals?

Starlink is his satellite internet service.

The company ended up sending 50 terminals, a narrative spread on social media that Elon Musk had swooped in to save the day.

There were many tweets shared about how there were Starlink technicians in the neighboring nation of Fiji working hard to get ground station set up so that they could get service to Tonga.

But Megan says the reality on the islands was more complicated. By the time Musk got involved, an international consortium and the state cable company were already working to reconnect the archipelago.

It actually took longer for Starlink to arrive in the country than it took for the state backed cable company to fix the repair.

It feels like a bit of a pattern for Starlink, of bold ambition, but only modest success.

The head of the state telecom group told me that he was not really able to find any use for the terminals himself, so they already have other solutions in place.

Today on the show, can Starlink ever fulfill its promise of connecting the world, especially places left behind by traditional internet? Or will it be just another toy for the rich?

I'm Lizio Leary and you're listening to WhatNextTBD, a show about technology, power, and how the future will be determined. Stick with us.

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