- Starlink is now
available in four countries in Africa – South Africa is not one of them. - More than a thousand
South Africans are using a back-door method to access the satellite
internet services. - But they are paying a
premium to do this. - For more stories, visit
the Tech and Trends homepage.
Following Starlink’s launch in
Kenya on Tuesday, the SpaceX-owned satellite internet provider’s services are
now officially available in four countries in Africa, with many more set to
come online before the end of the year.
But in South Africa, regulatory
obstacles mean there is currently no timeline for when the country will be
given official access to Starlink’s powerful satellite internet services.
Starlink is a satellite internet
provider that is owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
It has a fleet of satellites
that are in low earth orbit which provide high-speed internet across the globe.
But to use Starlink’s services,
a subscription for the services, as well as a Starlink kit, which includes an
antenna and wifi router, is needed.
And since Starlink does not
currently have a licence to operate in South Africa from the Independent
Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), it is impossible to take out
a subscription and purchase a Starlink kit for someone who uses a South African
address.
South Africa is covered by the Starlink network,
meaning it would be possible for paying customers with a subscription to
connect.
ICASA has not yet responded to
questions from News24, but confirmed to TechCentral in April it
had met twice with SpaceX and said Starlink had not applied for a licence.
Other African countries have
cleared the regulatory hurdles and have enabled Starlink to operate in the
country already or have plans to launch in what remains of 2023 or in 2024.
Starlink announced on Tuesday Kenya had joined
Nigeria, Rwanda, and Mozambique in providing access to it.
Starlink has an availability map on its website which
shows where it has coverage, where its services are live, and provides an
indication of when certain countries are expected to start offering its
services.
Among the countries sharing a
border with South Africa, Mozambique already has Starlink available, Zimbabwe,
Namibia, Botswana, and Eswatini are set to launch Starlink before year’s end
and Lesotho is in a similar position to South Africa, with no service date
listed.
Angola, Tanzania, Senegal,
Ghana, and Zambia are among the countries that are scheduled to start providing
Starlink services before the end of 2023, based on the availability map.
Back-door access
As MyBroadband first reported,
it is possible to access Starlink in South Africa using the roaming
feature the company launched earlier this year.
Starlink customers who take out
a roaming package can take their kit with them and access internet services
wherever there is network access.
This allows someone to fix a Starlink to the
roof of a vehicle for example and access it in any country or area where there
is network coverage.
Using this method, more than a
thousand South Africans were already making use of Starlink, News24 reported last week.
READ MORE | Over a thousand South Africans already using Musk’s Starlink, even though
it lacks regulator’s nod
One company in the Eastern
Cape, IT Lec, is acting as a third-party service
provider which imports the Starlink kit for South Africans and manages
subscriptions on behalf of clients.
The company had provided access
to Starlink to around 1 700 clients so far and received approximately 10 to 20
requests for kits per day, according to IT Lec director and investor Mauritz
Coetzee.
He said the download speed South
Africans were getting using Starlink is an average of 50 and 200 Mbps.
Coetzee added the upload speed was
more stable at around 15 to 20 Mbps.
Paying a premium
He told News24 IT Lec charged
R15 000 for the Starlink kit, which is often imported from the US, which
included taxes and courier costs.
The monthly subscription cost is
R1 799 after that.
It is possible to see the price other
countries are paying for Starlink access by entering an address from that
country into the order portal on its website.
In Kenya, around R11 250 (89 000
Kenyan shillings) must be paid for the Starlink hardware, and R997 for the
monthly subscription for a regional roaming package.
In Mozambique, R11 378 (40 492 Mozambican meticals)
must be paid for the hardware and R1 024 is charged monthly for the regional
roaming package.