Starlink will disrupt mobile and fibre operators in South Africa — Vodacom veteran

Bad Ballie said:
Suspect most of the opposition to Starlink is in fact from companies themselves, who can already see they are a dying breed that have priced themselves out of the market. Easier to pay the government to prevent Starlinks entry than to accept they are headed for their own Kodak moment no matter what they do.
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The other day I had to explain to my kids what a "Kodak moment" is, or rather, was... I had to show them a few YT videos!
 
In Mozambique another thing is starting. It is WiFi sharing. And here in Inhambane is more and more of a thing. It goes like this:
A more afluent (relative meaning) household is buying the dish (gen2) for around 10 to 20000 meticals. (Around 6 months salary!) Than they register for Home - Deprioritised package at around 1000 meticals a month. And because the houses are fairly close to each other, the 100 mbit or so bandwidth is shared among 4 or 5 neighbouring households. Everyone is paying 200 to 300 Meticals a month (around 70 to 100 or so Rand). The home owner pays nothing. Every house has a cheap (Chinese) WiFi simple router. The router address is stored in the Starlink base station. So starlink only is seeing the WiFi routers and is splitting the bandwidth equally (say 20mbit each). The home owner uses the second starlink WiFi (5GHz) for his own house. The 2.4 GHz goes to the neighbours. Starlink base-station has a nice menu for this. It definitely looks like the Starlink engineers thought of this Internet sharing beforehand.
The end user receives a 20mbit link, uncapped and fairly stable, with sub 50ms access, for less than 100 Rand a month.
After 3 years or so, the home owner will have free, uncapped Internet for as long as the Starlink dish lasts.
I definitely see how Starlink will change the landscape for cheap Internet access in South Africa.
 
RomTuringia said:
In Mozambique another thing is starting. It is WiFi sharing. And here in Inhambane is more and more of a thing. It goes like this:
A more afluent (relative meaning) household is buying the dish (gen2) for around 10 to 20000 meticals. (Around 6 months salary!) Than they register for Home - Deprioritised package at around 1000 meticals a month. And because the houses are fairly close to each other, the 100 mbit or so bandwidth is shared among 4 or 5 neighbouring households. Everyone is paying 200 to 300 Meticals a month (around 80 to 120 or so Rand). The home owner pays nothing. Every house has a cheap (Chinese) WiFi simple router. The router address is stored in the Starlink base station. So starlink only is seeing the WiFi routers and is splitting the bandwidth equally (say 20mbit each). The home owner uses the second starlink WiFi (5GHz) for his own house. The 2.4 GHz goes to the neighbours. Starlink base-station has a nice menu for this. It definitely looks like the Starlink engineers thought of this Internet sharing beforehand.
The end user receives a 20mbit link, uncapped and fairly stable, with sub 50ms access, for around 100 Rand a month.
After 3 years or so, the home owner will have free, uncapped Internet for as long as the Starlink dish lasts.
I definitely see how Starlink will change the landscape for cheap Internet access in South Africa.
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Problem comes later with bandwidth IMHO. Arent there some countries in Africa where sales have stopped because there is too much congestion?

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wingnut771 said:
Problem comes later with bandwidth IMHO. Arent there some countries in Africa where sales have stopped because there is too much congestion?

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I hear you. Absolutely, places like Soweto will definitely hit a wall when every 5th household goes Starlink
But in more rural areas, where you get a few houses here and there clustered together, this will definitely make a change. I see some are combining this with a small battery and solar panel. As I am judging by the looks, the solar panel can't be more than 200 or maxim 300 watts. It is about half in size of one pannel I have at my house.
You don't even need electricity in the village and you have Internet access
 
greedy fsxkers, they should jump in front of this and become the down-link station for starlink.
at least then they can profit somewhat from when inevitable starlink goes live in SA.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
greedy fsxkers, they should jump in front of this and become the down-link station for starlink.
at least then they can profit somewhat from when inevitable starlink goes live in SA.
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groundstation is part of starlink. why give that to vodacom? vodacom can go jump off a cliff for all i care.
 
Poster | Video Killed the Radio Star :: Behance


Dear fibre, before satelite breaks you. Do 1000mbs for R100 per month 🤣:D:D:D
 
I've used Starlink in Kruger (Punda, Letaba and Balule among others) over the last year or so. Teams meetings were no issue. Yes, an hour here and there, but brilliant. Not being able to do that would have meant not having breaks with the family. No, you can't do that on mobile data at any of those places...
 
Tantus said:
I've used Starlink in Kruger (Punda, Letaba and Balule among others) over the last year or so. Teams meetings were no issue. Yes, an hour here and there, but brilliant. Not being able to do that would have meant not having breaks with the family. No, you can't do that on mobile data at any of those places...
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To the Gulag with you for violating previously disadvantaged Our People who suffered like everyone else when there was no internet during apartheid.
 
Jet-Fighter7700 said:
Vodacom, if they manage to persuade Starlink to use its infrastructure some people might get rich.
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Roo! said:
I think he's referring to the backhaul links to the main data centres and ultimately to the undersea cables for international access.
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Starlink already has a PoP at JHB Teraco. They are using it to take the strain off of the surrounding countries who do not have the infrastructure that we do.

If Vodacom or any other provider wants to partner with them, it would be in reselling their services. Not providing bandwidth or anything else. If anything Vodacom et al will become a customer of Starlink to connect some of their rural base stations and provide backhaul/failover capacity.
 
Sopbeen said:
Starlink already has a PoP at JHB Teraco. They are using it to take the strain off of the surrounding countries who do not have the infrastructure that we do.

If Vodacom or any other provider wants to partner with them, it would be in reselling their services. Not providing bandwidth or anything else. If anything Vodacom et al will become a customer of Starlink to connect some of their rural base stations and provide backhaul/failover capacity.
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PoP is not the same thing as a ground station. We already have one in the middle of the country in Lesotho, so we don't even need any more.
 
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