Major satellite Internet reseller now offering Starlink in Africa
African telecommunications and network services provider Paratus Group has announced that it entered into an agreement to provide Starlink’s Internet services across the continent.
The company said the deal would allow it to offer Starlink to its customers across Africa, as operating licenses are awarded to Starlink in those countries.
“Starlink recognises Paratus Group as a key African distributor,” the company said.
“Initially, and with immediate effect, Starlink will be available from Paratus in Mozambique, Kenya, Rwanda, and Nigeria before being rolled out to more countries.”
Paratus chief commercial officer Martin Cox said the agreement with Starlink meant it could offer reliable and constant connectivity for multiple industry sectors — including land and offshore energy, mining, hospitality, education, healthcare, and agriculture.
“The Starlink agreement further strengthens our LEO (low earth orbit) satellite services offering across Africa and affirms our considerable capability and reach on the continent,” Cox said.
Paratus said it could provide customers with fixed, mobility, and maritime Starlink services with immediate effect, backed by 24/7 support for enterprises.
Starlink dish and router plugged into power station at picnic site in Kruger National Park
Paratus currently offers geostationary business and home satellite services in South Africa.
For the latter, prices start at R749 per month for an uncapped 5/2Mbps service on a 24-month contract with a fair usage policy of 100GB.
However, low-earth orbit services like Starlink boast much better speed and lower latency than conventional satellite packages.
In addition to Starlink, Paratus is also an official distribution partner of UK-based LEO service OneWeb, which will primarily target business and enterprise customers.
MyBroadband recently compared Starlink with Morclick — one of the geostationary services that has been available in South Africa for several years — on a farm in Limpopo.
We found the LEO service was significantly faster and better suited to latency-sensitive applications like video and voice calling.
Starlink could achieve download speeds of around 100Mbps and typically had upload speeds over 20Mbps, while the Morclick package consistently performed at its advertised 20/3Mbps speeds.
Starlink’s latency hovered around 200ms and peaked at 380ms, while the Morclick service’s ping ranged from 800ms to 1.3 seconds.
Paratus said Starlink maintained over 99.5% up-time across all its customers — and higher for unobstructed installations.
Starlink (right) tested against Morclick at a farm in Limpopo.
According to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Starlink has not yet applied for an operating licence in South Africa.
The approval of its electronic communications service (ECS) and electronic communications network service (ECNS) licences will determine whether it will be available from Paratus.
As set out in the Electronic Communications Act, Internet service providers must be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups to obtain these licences.
These groups includes black people, women, youth, and people with disabilities.
The Internet Service Providers’ Association has explained that Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX, won’t have to give up or sell 30% of its equity to those meeting the HDG requirements.
Instead, it can establish a local subsidiary or get a partner that meets the requirements.
Despite not being officially approved in South Africa, thousands of local households and businesses have already imported Starlink kits and use the service’ roaming feature to get connected.
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