Starlink South Africa approval confusion – MyBroadband

While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company’s Starlink satellite Internet service is awaiting regulatory approval in South Africa, the country’s telecoms regulator denies this is the case.

In response to questions, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) told MyBroadband it had yet to receive Starlink’s formal application for an operating licence in the country.

The confirmation comes after Musk posted on Twitter/X that Starlink was “Waiting for regulatory approval” in South Africa. He was responding to a post from a local farmer bemoaning the service’s lack of availability.

Although Musk tends to be overly optimistic about timelines for launching certain products or features, it is also possible that he has intimate knowledge of the activities of Starlink personnel that Icasa itself might not yet be aware of.

MyBroadband has learnt that at least one of Starlink’s directors in charge of securing regulatory approvals is currently in South Africa. However, the purpose of their visit remains to be confirmed.

While our source did not reveal the name of the Starlink employee, there are two potential candidates. The first is Ryan D. Goodnight, Starlink’s senior director of global licencing and market activation for nearly four years.

The other is Ben MacWilliams, appointed Starlink market access lead for the African continent at the start of 2024.

Several online posts show that the pair have been travelling to several countries, including African countries like Botswana and South Sudan, where they met with authorities on Starlink rollouts.

Goodnight and MacWilliams recently celebrated the launch of Starlink in South Africa’s neighbour Zimbabwe.

“Great effort by my team to persevere through a difficult and complex licensing and activation effort,” Goodnight posted on X.

A picture shared by the presidency of Botswana, which recently launched Starlink, shows Goodnight and MacWilliams with Starlink business operations vice president Lauren Dreyer.

Dreyer is currently registered as a director of SpaceX Internet Services South Africa on the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission’s database.

Starlink’s estimated rollout date in South Africa has been “unknown” since September 2022.

While the company has yet to confirm as much itself, the delay in a local rollout is believed to be due to uncertainty around South Africa’s ownership rules for telecoms licensees.

The Electronic Communications Act requires that all licenced Internet service providers in South Africa be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups, including black people, women, youth, and children with disabilities.

However, Icasa updated the regulations in March 2021 to stipulate that licensees must be 30% black-owned. These new ownership regulations have been suspended to an undetermined future date, leaving the sector in limbo.

In September 2022, Starlink changed South Africa’s estimated launch date from 2023 to “unknown”.

Aside from the ownership requirements, Icasa has not issued new electronic communications services or network licences in 14 years.

According to Icasa, issuing new network licences requires the communications minister to publish an Invitation to Apply, which last happened in 2009 and 2010.

Starlink can only acquire licences by either buying an existing licence holder or having it transfer its licence to Starlink, which often comes at a substantial cost.

Even state-owned telecoms infrastructure provider Broadband Infraco had to publish a tender to acquire a licence to start offering Internet services directly.

Nearly all South Africa’s neighbours have Starlink

South Africa could soon find itself being the only Southern African country without Starlink.

Zimbabwe is the 14th African country and fourth South African neighbour to get Starlink connectivity.

The only countries bordering South Africa where the service has not yet launched — Lesotho and Namibia — also have estimated availability dates for 2024.

Starlink does offer roaming, which allows users to connect to the network when travelling outside their home country.

To use the service in South Africa, locals can import a kit from an officially supported country and take up a more expensive regional or global roaming package.

However, they must visit the country of registration every 60 days and access Starlink Internet from there to keep their subscription active.