South Africa could become a Starlink-less island in 2024

South Africa looks set to become an “island” surrounded by countries and areas with official Starlink availability in 2024.

The uncapped low-earth orbit satellite Internet service has already launched in two of South Africa’s six neighbours — Eswatini and Mozambique — and has been approved in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The service’s official coverage map also shows a 2024 estimated date of availability for Namibia.

In many other countries in Southern Africa, the story is similar.

Starlink has already gone live in Malawi and Zambia and has given Angola’s estimated launch dates as Q3 2024.

Meanwhile, South Africa and just one other Southern African country — Lesotho — have “unknown” launch dates.

While this status is not as hopeless as countries like China and Russia facing a total Starlink blackout, it has nonetheless cast doubts over Starlink’s plans to roll out locally.

The table below shows the status of Starlink in the 10 Southern African countries.

It is unclear exactly what is behind Starlink’s reluctance to launch in South Africa, although it has suggested that regulatory issues could be a stumbling block.

Starlink enterprise sales director Phillip van Essen previously told Mining Weekly that the company prioritised those areas that made business and approval easy.

If the company has stuck with this strategy, other Southern African countries have evidently been making approval easier than South Africa. It is also possible Starlink has been more motivated to launch in these countries.

However, the latter does not ring true, considering there is clearly a large market for the service in South Africa.

Several thousand users already use Starlink’s roaming service despite the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) declaring it illegal.

Icasa has confirmed that Starlink requires at least an electronic communications services licence to offer its service directly to South Africans.

If it rolled out local ground stations, it would also have to acquire an electronic communications network services licence.

Botswana and Zimbabwe reach agreements with Starlink

There are at least two confirmed cases where Starlink and authorities in South Africa’s neighbours have quickly resolved regulatory impasses in the past few months.

The governments of Botswana and Zimbabwe previously took issue with the company’s roaming service working in their jurisdictions when Starlink had not yet acquired licences.

Zimbabwe even went so far as to arrest people accused of using Starlink and slap them with fines — including the son of a former minister.

Starlink acknowledged and followed these governments’ instructions by switching off roaming in those countries while it continued regulatory discussions.

While this has temporarily cut off services, Starlink will now fully launch in their countries — with localised pricing.

South Africans who rely on Starlink’s roaming service received the same warnings of cutoffs at the start of May 2024, but none have reported being denied service to date.

Even before Botswana and Zimbabwe’s actions, Icasa warned that using Starlink in South Africa was illegal due to the service lacking the necessary telecoms and spectrum licences.

However, Icasa has been silent on whether it has approached Starlink to demand it switch off its roaming service in South Africa.

MyBroadband has repeatedly asked the regulator about this in the past few months, but it has failed to respond to our queries.

According to the latest available information provided by Icasa in a response to TechCentral, Starlink had still not applied for a licence to operate locally.

Meanwhile, many South African roaming users desperate for fast and uncapped Internet in rural areas continue to have unofficial Starlink connectivity — albeit at a higher cost than a regular in-country subscription.

Starlink’s roaming subscriptions were already more expensive and are getting a price hike from August 2024.