Starlink

[DaveThomas]

After 10 years of having absolutely useless connectivity every Christmas and Easter, Vodacom excelled themselves this year. speeds typically around 1 Mbps (optimistically) since the week before Christmas and ongoing as i speak. I have over the years used Telcom and MTN with same result. I pay for 50Mbps LTE, they stopped installing fibre halfway up the road for reasons only known to themselves. So here is my question: Starlink will arrive at some stage, maybe within weeks, maybe within years. I don't mind weeks but years is not acceptable. Has anyone bought a starlink kit from elsewhere, Eswatini or Lesotho, and installed it. Provided that you can pay your subscription in another country I can see no reason why this should not be a solution. Any words of advice from anyone?

 

[ToxicBunny]

After 10 years of having absolutely useless connectivity every Christmas and Easter, Vodacom excelled themselves this year. speeds typically around 1 Mbps (optimistically) since the week before Christmas and ongoing as i speak. I have over the years used Telcom and MTN with same result. I pay for 50Mbps LTE, they stopped installing fibre halfway up the road for reasons only known to themselves. So here is my question: Starlink will arrive at some stage, maybe within weeks, maybe within years. I don't mind weeks but years is not acceptable. Has anyone bought a starlink kit from elsewhere, Eswatini or Lesotho, and installed it. Provided that you can pay your subscription in another country I can see no reason why this should not be a solution. Any words of advice from anyone?

It will be years not weeks.

You can try get it from another country, and have roaming in place, but you will need to return the unit back to its home country every so many months for a period to "reset" the roaming time frame.

 

[BBSA]

After 10 years of having absolutely useless connectivity every Christmas and Easter, Vodacom excelled themselves this year. speeds typically around 1 Mbps (optimistically) since the week before Christmas and ongoing as i speak. I have over the years used Telcom and MTN with same result. I pay for 50Mbps LTE, they stopped installing fibre halfway up the road for reasons only known to themselves. So here is my question: Starlink will arrive at some stage, maybe within weeks, maybe within years. I don't mind weeks but years is not acceptable. Has anyone bought a starlink kit from elsewhere, Eswatini or Lesotho, and installed it. Provided that you can pay your subscription in another country I can see no reason why this should not be a solution. Any words of advice from anyone?

Keep a eye on this:

Starlink Rival Amazon Leo Opens Registrations in South Africa with Gigabit-Speed Promises

Starlink Rival Amazon Leo Opens Registrations in South Africa with Gigabit-Speed Promises Starlink Rival Amazon Leo Opens Registrations in South Africa with

centralnews.co.za

 

[HartsockZA]

After 10 years of having absolutely useless connectivity every Christmas and Easter, Vodacom excelled themselves this year. speeds typically around 1 Mbps (optimistically) since the week before Christmas and ongoing as i speak. I have over the years used Telcom and MTN with same result. I pay for 50Mbps LTE, they stopped installing fibre halfway up the road for reasons only known to themselves. So here is my question: Starlink will arrive at some stage, maybe within weeks, maybe within years. I don't mind weeks but years is not acceptable. Has anyone bought a starlink kit from elsewhere, Eswatini or Lesotho, and installed it. Provided that you can pay your subscription in another country I can see no reason why this should not be a solution. Any words of advice from anyone?

Yea... in other news...

Managed to get my hands on towers in the East of Pretoria. I'd love to build a network out Tierpoort, Beshwa at some point in my life but it isn't about towers more like up take of service. Was thinking of 50Mbps at R599pm

Anyways yea starlink is what it is.

 

[V3T1S]

After 10 years of having absolutely useless connectivity every Christmas and Easter, Vodacom excelled themselves this year. speeds typically around 1 Mbps (optimistically) since the week before Christmas and ongoing as i speak. I have over the years used Telcom and MTN with same result. I pay for 50Mbps LTE, they stopped installing fibre halfway up the road for reasons only known to themselves. So here is my question: Starlink will arrive at some stage, maybe within weeks, maybe within years. I don't mind weeks but years is not acceptable. Has anyone bought a starlink kit from elsewhere, Eswatini or Lesotho, and installed it. Provided that you can pay your subscription in another country I can see no reason why this should not be a solution. Any words of advice from anyone?

People have tried this and it can work short term, but it is not a clean solution. Starlink kits from Eswatini or Lesotho usually activate only with a regional or roaming plan, and Starlink enforces country based geofencing more strictly now. Many users report service stopping after a few weeks or months when the dish stays outside the registered country. You also risk losing support and updates. It works best only as a temporary workaround, not a long term fix, unless Starlink officially opens service in your country.