Starlink and the craze for satellite internet

CybAfriqué is a space for news and analysis on cyber, data, and information security on the African continent.

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Starlink and the craze for satellite internet

We talk about Starlink a lot, maybe too much.

The reason is that Starlink is a force pulling everything in digital Africa toward internet access, cybercrime, digital repression, and the advantaged positions of massive, entrenched telcos. 

Last week, Vodacom (the largest mobile network operator in South Africa and a Vodafone subsidiary) said it’d be doing initial testing of Starlink’s services and considering a partnership. Since Starlink began its significant rollout across the continent in late 2022, other telcos like MTN, Orange, Airtel, and Safaricom have also sought these kinds of partnerships or at least acknowledged the threat. Paratus Group, a Pan-African fiber and satellite provider, tried partnering with another Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite provider to do backhaul services (connecting their main networks). Orange is working on a partnership with Eutelsat/OneWeb, and Safaricom with AST SpaceMobile (a different kind of space-based cellular system).

Africa’s internet is heavily reliant on Telcos. They are monolithic incumbents who have significant control over the connective infrastructure, including fiber optic and 4G/5G towers, and the flow of user data.

Telcos, however, as data on Africa’s internet accessibility metrics show, are pretty bad at driving universal access. They are oligopolistic, under-invested in rural infrastructure due to low short-term returns, and often overly comfortable with their political leverage. For context: According to the GSMA, while mobile penetration in Sub-Saharan Africa is high, the mobile internet use gap (the percentage of people covered by mobile internet but not using it) remains the largest globally, and approximately 75% million people still do not have access to the internet. The return on investment for building a tower in a sparsely populated area is years, not months, a timeline telcos rarely love.

Starlink will not necessarily fix this problem. Despite Starlink touting itself as a fix for the developing world’s rural connectivity problem, the data says something else entirely. Starlink use is heavily concentrated in urban cities and upper-income areas, owing primarily to high setup and subscription costs.

Starlink kits and base monthly subscriptions cost around $500 upfront and $50-$99/month across the continent (Nigeria is roughly $50/month; South Africa is higher). This is well above the average minimum wage of less than $100/month in many major economies (Nigeria's federal minimum wage is currently around $40/month, though often poorly enforced). The only places to find that disposable income are in urban areas, where power is stable enough to run the dish, and the local economy supports a high-margin business or professional class.

Yet, in those urban areas, Starlink has displaced telcos and other ISPs across the continent, particularly among businesses and wealthier consumers. In Nigeria, Starlink adoption amongst middle-to-high income households and startups surged after regulatory approval in 2022, leading to reports from TechCabal about a measurable dip in fixed broadband subscriptions from local ISPs. Similar stories abound in Kenya (where it's popular with tech startups) and Mozambique.

In places where Starlink is facing approval issues, dark markets have emerged selling smuggled Starlink kits at huge margins—the dishes are shipped from an approved country and activated under its international roaming plan. This phenomenon happened dramatically in Ghana before its official launch, as well as in Zimbabwe. Perhaps this is where the market opportunity lies for telcos.

If you cannot beat them, partner with them. Many telcos see the partnership with Starlink as a key to a competition without a huge upfront cost. They can just rent capacity from the satellite operators.

It’s not clear how these partnerships will work exactly, but they will ease market access and regulatory ground for Starlink. For example, Vodacom is the largest provider in South Africa, where Starlink has faced a regulatory deadlock with ICASA (the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) because the country's Electronic Communications Act requires a company offering services to be partially owned by historically disadvantaged groups. A Vodacom partnership could allow Starlink to bypass this complexity by riding on Vodacom's license and local ownership structure. 

Another Cybercrime law goes up

The Liberian Senate adopted a cybercrime law on November 4, the latest in a long list of legislative efforts across Africa. They reflect a genuine need to fight digital crime, including online fraud, ransomware, and digital components of transnational crime. However, as we’ve mentioned often in past editions, the execution of these laws uses ambitious language that makes them open to being used to target dissent and stifle free speech. When cyber-stalking becomes criticizing a politician on Facebook, you have a serious problem.

As of recent counts, around 46 countries, or 85% of the continent, have passed comprehensive cybercrime laws or are actively finalizing them. This is a dramatic legislative burst, often driven by international conventions like the Budapest Convention and the African Union's Malabo Convention. A few prominent examples include Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Tanzania, Senegal, and Zimbabwe. 

All of these countries suffer from an inclusion of "cyber-enabled" crimes that criminalize free speech using overly broad, subjective terms that have been removed or narrowed in more established democracies to protect free speech.

For example, Nigeria's Cybercrimes Act of 2015 (and its controversial 2024 amendment) has a segment criminalizing sending a message that is offensive, indecent, or false for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, insult, injury, or needless anxiety to another person. Terms like "annoyance" and "ill will" are highly subjective. They allow the state to prosecute citizens, journalists, and activists for mere criticism, satire, or political commentary directed at powerful people. The ECOWAS Court of Justice in 2022 ruled that a similar provision in the Act was not in conformity with the right to freedom of expression, yet arrests and prosecutions have continued, using the law's vague scope to detain critics. 

By contrast, comparable laws in established democracies are generally much more specific, focusing on tangible harm, not hurt feelings. The Budapest Convention, for example, focus on specific technical offenses, like "Illegal access" (hacking), "Illegal interception," and "Data interference." When these jurisdictions criminalize speech, it's typically under separate laws that must meet a very high bar. Incitement to violence requires a high likelihood of imminent, actual violence. Pornography and sexual abuse material include clear, defined, and universally accepted crime terms, and defamation is handled via civil court proceedings that typically exempt speech about public officials or political matters.

FEATURE

• The AU can help African countries adopt the UN cybercrime convention. But the challenges are significant

• Sovereignty-as-a-service: How big tech companies co-opt and redefine digital sovereignty

HEADLINES

• WhatsApp settles court case in South Africa and agrees to make changes

• Algeria approves draft legislation on digital ID, trust services

• Botswana's tech agenda: E-Government, digital jobs and cybersecurity take centre stage

ACROSS THE WORLD

• DOJ issued a seizure warrant to Starlink over satellite internet systems used at scam compound

OPPORTUNITIES

• 2026 Paller Cybersecurity Scholarship to study at SANS Technology Institute

• EU Cyber diplomacy fellowship

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