Nothing prevents me buying a sat phone or something like Iridium GO wifi point and airtime on any of dozens of international sites and using it anywhere on earth that has coverage. ICASA can do handstands, they can’t prevent that. There is no need for an ISP of whatever ownership persuasion either. Why is StarLink different?
One part of reason is SL uses ground stations that routes traffic over fiber to the rest of internet so they need governments. The likes of Iridium is slow and small data and they ground at only half a dozen spots globally.
I think part of SL approach is business/profit. Take roaming for instance. There should be (for SL) almost no difference from where in the world I connect to them : they have satellites everywhere. If I want portable internet, I must however PAY MORE. In reality whether the Mini sits on my house or moves around with me is an advantage for me that makes no difference to SL and it can charge more, so it does.
The most obvious example of where this is purely about money is on water. You can use your Mini at your house uncapped for X amount. If you want to use it while traveling, you pay extra Y to use it on safari or somewhere remote. If you want to use it on a boat, you have to pay $250 per month for a capped 50Gb deal. It makes no difference to SL whether I use my Mini in France or Morocco on roam but if I want it on my boat on the ocean they know they can charge a fortune for a restricted service, so they do. They imagine that their speed is worth the $250 for 50Gb capped compared to the slow speed on Iridium GO or message service on Garmin Inreach. Boaters aren’t going for SL because SL is only a carrier whereas Garmin Inreach for example offers a full SOS Search and Rescue coordination with InReach.
In the end it is profit game. The Mini for example costs a third as much to buy and a third as much monthly in for example Panama as in the US. Why? SL knows the target market in Panama cannot pay the equivalent of what users in America are willing to pay, so they have to charge less for the exact same hardware and service.
