SpaceX’s uncapped satellite Internet service Starlink could be of huge benefit for many South African households and businesses in rural areas and is not an expensive Internet solution compared to competing services.
In the past few weeks, MyBroadband has noticed a surge in comments online downplaying the potential benefit of Starlink’s service and arguing against its launch in South Africa.
“There is nothing particularly remarkable about Starlink, at least from a South African perspective,” said X user Nala Thokozane.
“Why does South Africa need Starlink? We have amazing fibre, let’s focus on infrastructure instead of technology that will be fishing South African data,” said user Black Wiz.
“Satellite Internet is not a new thing in South Africa, it’s been there with ADSL and way before we got 4G Internet,” said user Josiah Thobejane. “You can even still get it today with Vox and Vodacom.”
“The only difference with Starlink would be significantly faster download speeds. It’s not a wow thing we need,” they said.
Another X user — Julius Oaganga — called for South Africa to ban Starlink as it added “zero value”.
“Imagine paying R2,000 for Internet and a further R5,000 to buy the kit, when you could pay R600 monthly,” they said.
Since mid-2023, MyBroadband has spoken to several actual South African Starlink roaming users who have wildly different views on the service than the recent wave of online critics.
Starlink’s customer profile in South Africa ranges widely — from farmers and rural schools to safari lodges and mining companies working in remote areas.
MyBroadband also knows of national fast-food franchises, car dealerships, and government departments using the service.
Their verdict has been unanimous — Starlink is simply unbeatable in its performance, even with the high asking price of its roaming service, which is the only subscription that works in South Africa.
Despite Starlink being branded “illegal” in South Africa, the roaming service has amassed thousands of users who imported their kits from officially-supported countries.
These customers have already proven there is a clear demand for Starlink in South Africa.
Should the service receive official approval, it is likely that many more holdouts wary of law enforcement and lack of official Starlink support would sign up.
MyBroadband has also tested the service on multiple locations and in various areas ourselves — including on farms, the Kruger National Park, Pilanesberg, and in motion at over 100km/h.
We found it generally boasted download speeds well over 100Mbps and upload speeds around 15Mbps to 20Mbps, dozens of times better than what is available on older satellite packages and even fixed-wireless access services.
Below, we have listed and explained some of the misconceptions around Starlink and what its approval could offer South Africa.
Misconception 1: Starlink is “too expensive”
One major theme in many arguments against Starlink is that it is too expensive.
This is false when considering that Starlink is a satellite Internet service that can provide uncapped connectivity in any area with an open view of the sky.
While the roaming service’s price is not comparable to broadband products available in many highly populated areas, several thousand rural customers with the financial means are still willing to pay it due to its vastly improved performance.
The reality is that older satellite Internet services offer low speeds and high latency, which makes outdated ADSL look good.
The most affordable non-Starlink uncapped satellite Internet package in South Africa starts at R700 but has a download speed of 5Mbps and upload rate of 2Mbps.
It also has a stringent fair usage policy that throttles speeds down to 1Mbps after 100GB of consumption and 512kbps after 200GB usage.
The maximum speeds offered on these packages is 50Mbps, with a monthly price of more than R3,500.
Starlink’s roaming plan has proven to support 100Mbps speeds and is currently priced between about R1,700 and R1,900, depending on the country of registration.
It should also be noted that if Starlink were to officially launch in South Africa, the subscription price would be reduced significantly as local users would no longer require a roaming subscription.
As it stands, the most affordable price for Starlink in Africa is on a Lite package in Zimbabwe with a Starlink Mini kit, which costs $30 (R534) per month.
That is on par with affordable mid-tier fibre-to-the-home packages in South Africa, which already has much cheaper fibre than Zimbabwe.
While this might still be expensive for impoverished communities, Starlink could be used in central facilities where lots of people converge or live — like libraries, schools, or communal housing — where the cost can be distributed.
Misconception 2: South Africa’s existing broadband is “good enough”
The second major argument against Starlink in South Africa is that the country already has sufficient alternative Internet options.
While it is true that South Africa’s Internet penetration rate of 80% is among the highest on the continent, the outstanding fifth should not be neglected.
Many of these people are unlikely to see affordable broadband connectivity reach them anytime soon.
The areas they live in and their economic means don’t currently favour telecoms infrastructure rollouts.
By approving Starlink, the South African government could save billions of rand on broadband expansion projects or direct that money to more basic infrastructure — like clean water and electricity supply.
Misconception 3: Starlink offers no economic benefit
The third big argument against Starlink is that it will offer no benefit to South Africa’s economy unless it launches with a local partner that can resell its service and employ local workers.
However, even if Starlink were willing to partner with a local company to meet licencing requirements, that would not result in significantly more local jobs or revenue generation.
By its very design, Starlink is intended to be an easy-to-use self-service system that requires little technical knowledge to install and maintain.
That said, it would be unfair for the government to exempt Starlink from South Africa’s strict equity requirements and other regulations while other telecoms licensees must meet the rules.
Instead of arguing for special treatment for Starlink, a case could be made for dropping some of these rules altogether.
An industry expert has argued that requiring a particular race-based shareholding in a company has hurt small black-owned telecom companies more than major players.
Even if Starlink does not partner with a local company to resell subscriptions, it will need to roll out local ground stations to offer the best possible service in South Africa.
These ground stations provide backhaul connectivity to the world’s terrestrial and undersea Internet cables and are essential for keeping Starlink’s latency low.
In the only other African country where it is confirmed to have launched a ground station — Nigeria — Starlink partnered with Equinix to help run its ground stations.
Starlink has already received type approval for three ground station terminals in South Africa, suggesting it is interested or once was interested in rolling out local infrastructure.
In addition, Starlink also partners with local companies to distribute its kits to customers and to sell and maintain its business packages, which come with certain service-level agreements that can only be implemented by local teams.
Paratus has already secured official distributor status for Starlink’s business products in South Africa.
Starlink kits and subscriptions will also be subjected to South African taxes, providing additional revenue for government spending.
Lastly, businesses having reliable, high-speed Internet connectivity in rural areas will be able to use Starlink to grow their revenues and create jobs.
For example, Starlink’s high speed and bandwidth could be beneficial for automating agricultural technologies, improving remote site security monitoring, and connecting neglected businesses with e-commerce opportunities.