Elon Musk’s Starlink active in South Africa despite not being licensed

Billionaire Elon Musk is dominating the satellite industry, despite concerns around operating in South Africa because of licencing issues.

Starlink is a satellite internet system that is operated by Elon Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX. In 2014, Musk showed interest in building a satellite cluster. Back then, the venture was called WorldVu, which was later reconsidered in favour of spinning out a satellite internet system via SpaceX and filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission in 2016 with the name “Starlink”. Musk said inspiration behind the name came from John Green’s book titled “The Fault in Our Stars”.

Today, the company has over 4,000 of its satellites in orbit, and Musk has said he eventually wants to send up to 42,000 satellites into space. The company says Starlink satellites operate in Earth’s lower orbit decreasing the lag between when the data is transferred to the receiver.

SpaceX says its service has download speeds between 25 and 220 Mbps and most users report speeds over 100 Mbps, as well as upload speeds between 5 Mbps and 20 Mbps — speeds that are ideal for internet activities like gaming and streaming.

The service costs about $599 (R11 421.40) for the equipment and $110  (R2 097.42) per month in the US. Prices may vary based on the user’s location. According to SpaceX,  the Starlink service is available in 48 US states and over 55 countries. The company said that it had over 1.5 million subscribers in May this year.

While Starlink is not officially available in South Africa as it doesn’t yet indulge in local regulatory approval, thousands of people are already using the company’s satellite internet connection due to its international roaming feature.

Obtaining a licence in South Africa is a tough challenge for Starlink given that the company does not comply with South Africa’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment programme (BBBEE). This is an obligation and it is designed to enhance the economic participation of African, Coloured and Indian people who are South African citizens. Even though Starlink is not officially licensed to operate in SA, South Africans can use Starlink by taking out a roaming package in a country where it is licensed to operate. They would need to have a Starlink kit in which they would get an antenna to receive a signal from the satellites, as well as a Starlink Wi-fi router.

Starlink is primarily aimed toward users in more remote areas, and the company has begun providing its service to cruise lines and airlines over the past year.

In 2022, NASA said that Musk’s plans to launch about 42,000 satellites could interfere with its missions, generate space debris, and increase the risk of collisions.