Africans Are Turning to Starlink(economist.com) |
Africans Are Turning to Starlink(economist.com) |
As others mentioned, It’s a very similar situation for rural America. My dad lives in a rural setting, and for years could only get slow geostationary satellite Internet. As soon as he got Starlink, his connectivity improved dramatically. Only now that there was an established market for rural internet users in his area, are cable and fiber lines starting to get run.
This is in the context of a population that really depends on mobile wireless for market information if they are farmers, and for payments. Having a mobile phone can take priority over having a flush toilet.
Starlink has both opportunities and challenges: 5G is faster and cheaper and more reliable. But mobile wireless revenue is low, so capex is low too. Combine this with a big rural population, and Starlink has a great opportunity, if they can find customers who can afford it.
This is the rub. The primary market here are people whose communities aren't wealthy enough to afford infrastructure that would provide superior service (5G being a step up from satellite, and wired being a step up from that). So Starlink depends on there existing a growing population of people who aren't too poor to afford internet service in the first place, while also relying on the hope that those people don't become too wealthy to afford long-term infrastructure investments.
Satellite internet is not a “generation above” fibre internet
Same with electricity: there are many rural places in Africa where solar panels + batteries are a revolution.
But then there's a reason why a country with more than 3x the number of people in the US was "missing" technologies: Africa is, overall, very poor (GDP per capita in Africa is something like 1/40th of the GDP per capita in the US: 1/40th!). So there's a limit to how far the jump is possible: as someone commented, most of Africa is still on 3G and it's not clear if StarLink shall be able to find customers rich enough to buy their services.
1: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/continent-size-comparison/no...
Of course they will. If the prices are too high they can just lower them to whatever people can afford. It's not that expensive to cover Africa's customers.
You didn't read the article:
>Africa’s internet infrastructure is not fit for purpose. During a communications boom in the early 2000s, the continent eschewed fixed-line internet for cheaper mobile broadband; today more than 400m Africans, the bulk of the continent’s users, gain access to the internet this way.
>But the technology has not kept pace with the rapid increase in data demand from streaming and AI-powered applications.
I can bring it on long hikes, and be sure ill have internet access if i need it. completely changes the risk profile of remote outdoors activity
Rescues even with EPIRB’s can still be difficult.
Self-rescue, and self-sufficiency are priority, not some sense that someone will come save you if things go wrong.
Does it make you absolutely 100% safe? No. Does it suddenly nullify any potential risky scenario? No. But it is pretty idiotic to say that it doesn't change the risk. It very clearly changes the risk and reduces it drastically.
Having competition is important, and Starlink, being what it is, can compete with everyone everywhere at all times.
Starlink is a natural fit for sparsely populated underserved rural areas. But if going with Starlink begins to make economic sense in city centers, local ISPs have failed very hard. And Starlink is always there to punish them for it.
Unfortunately Starlink will never be able to make substantial inroads into urban areas since their cell size is far too large to serve a high of density customers well.
There are really no shortcuts to the immense goal of covering the African continent with reliable internet.
EDIT: In order to improve their lives, they need internet, but they also need everything else. Not providing everything in lockstep fails hugely. (And this includes providing good governance and non-corrupt leader, a problem we have no idea how to solve.)
tldr; Starlink doesn't work in South Africa, Elon's home country, because the ANC and its lawfare arm ICASA demands they hand over 30% to the State because of BEE laws.
It's also why Starlink has pushed so aggressively to establish itself in South Africa, going as far as to hold private meetings with the Democratic Alliance and even spamming their customers with emails urging them to put pressure on the government.
That's just nonsense. The regulator has been very clear on what the hold up is. A ECNS license is needed, which in turn requires 30% black ownership which musky boy isn't willing to do and isn't likely to change his mind on given his stance on DEI.
That's why the communication minister tried to create an alternative pathway around the 30% requirement
https://www.businessday.co.za/companies/2025-12-12-starlink-...
What an absurd requirement.
Of SpaceX or of a special South African Starlink reseller that SpaceX owns 70% of?
You can call it religion, you can call it culture, you can call it fear of choppy choppy of the hand, or maybe the fact everyone and their brother has a full auto AK, but there's something on a whole other level happening with poor (and also rich thieves) people in much of Africa.
The DSL would go down for hours a couple of times per month. I got on an early starlink pilot program and had a dish up in early 2021. Aside from momentary blips on the leading edge of a stormfront and occasional network issues a couple of times per year, it’s been rock solid with half the latency and 20x the bandwidth.
So, needless to say, starlink has been amazing.
The difference in latency is massive. 3ms vs 220ms roundtrip time at the speed of light.
And that’s the 99th percentile answer on that side of the bell curve
Things can go very wrong very quickly. If you go do risky activities far from help you should be prepared and know what you are getting yourself into and how to get yourself back out of it ahead of time.