Elon Musk’s Starlink starts cutting off South Africans – MyBroadband

Starlink users in South Africa are reporting that they have been cut off from SpaceX’s satellite broadband network.

This comes after SpaceX sent a second warning threatening to cut off users accessing Starlink through its regional roaming service for extended periods.

The warning said subscribers using the service outside the country where the kit was registered for more than two months will be disconnected from Wednesday, 21 August 2024.

“The ‘Mobile — Regional’ plans are intended for temporary travel and transit, not for permanent use in a location,” Starlink said.

The company instructed those accessing the service in a different country to either change their account’s country or return to the country where the kit is registered.

It is currently impossible to use Starlink in South Africa without a roaming subscription, as the service has not yet officially launched in the country.

This is technically unlawful, as Starlink lacks the network, spectrum, or operating licences to offer its service in South Africa.

It also doesn’t currently have a local partner with these licences to help offer its services locally.

Starlink does not have an estimated launch date for South Africa, while all of our neighbouring countries do.

It wasn’t always like this. South Africa was initially set to be the first Southern African country where Starlink would launch.

Although Starlink has remained silent about its reasons for changing South Africa’s estimated launch date from 2023 to “Unknown”, it’s an open secret that uncertainty around black ownership requirements is the main reason.

Currently, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) requires that companies acquiring national network infrastructure and service licences be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups.

However, in March 2021, Icasa introduced new regulations that would change this requirement to 30% black-owned.

Icasa has suspended this regulation until an undetermined future date, leaving South Africa’s broadband industry stuck in limbo. This happened just after Starlink started taking preorders in South Africa.

Local Starlink importer IcasaSePush has provided a list of possible fixes and workarounds to Starlink’s 60-day rule.

These include everything from temporarily pausing the service and transferring your account to a new email address, to buying a second kit and shuffling between them every 60 days.

Another option is Starlink’s global roaming service, however this is substantially more expensive than the regional roaming most South African users are paying for.

For example, global roaming on a kit purchased in the UK is around R8,900 per month.

Regional roaming on a kit bought from Eswatini is roughly R1,900 per month.

Another development in the past week was Starlink’s introduction of an “Outside Region Fee” for dish kits activated outside the region they were originally sold.

Although the fee is ostensibly to crack down on scalpers and other unauthorised grey importers, it will impact those who try to import a kit from a neighbouring country like Mozambique and activate it in South Africa.

Starlink will charge an Outside Region Fee of $200 (R3,550) for regular Dishy McFlatface kits and $300 (R5,350) for Starlink Mini kits.

Earlier this month, Icasa published a consultation paper on a proposed new licensing framework for satellite services, which would add yet another regulatory requirement for services like Starlink.

Under the proposed new regulations, services like Starlink must register the capacity they wish to offer in South Africa.

This does not remove the requirement of I-ECNS and I-ECS licences to obtain radio frequency spectrum licences and offer end-user services in South Africa.

Starlink would still have to obtain these licences directly, or by partnering with a local entity.

According to the consultation paper, Icasa’s enquiry aims to determine a regulatory and licensing framework for satellite services in South Africa and the procedures it could implement for their provisioning.

The main objectives of the inquiry are:

• Develop a transparent and streamlined regulatory framework with clear rules to establish regulatory certainty for potential satellite operators in South Africa.
• Outline the procedures for the provision of satellite services in South Africa.
• Develop procedures for authorising user terminals, IoT terminals, and earth station user terminals communicating with space stations while in motion.
• Review spectrum fees, taking also into account the increasing amount of bandwidth used by satellite systems operating in higher frequency bands.
• Develop a procedure for registration of international satellite operators (including details of ITU coordination status of the space segment) who intend to provide a service either directly or indirectly (through existing licensed operators) to South African consumers.

Therefore, the proposed new regulations don’t remove the current hurdles that may be discouraging Starlink from launching in South Africa — they are adding to them.