Sixth African country gets Starlink before South Africa — for R706 per month

SpaceX has officially rolled out Starlink in Zambia, the sixth country in Africa to get the high-speed, uncapped satellite Internet service.
Residents of the south-central African country can now place orders for their Starlink kits directly on the company’s website.
Starlink explained that the service was currently available in the country using inter-satellite links; therefore, latency could be an intermittent issue.
“Users will be able to engage in common Internet activity like email, online shopping, or streaming a movie, but activities like online gaming or video calls may be challenging at times,” Starlink said.
However, Starlink said the service would improve “dramatically” over the next year and said customers in the region typically measured download speeds up to 120Mbps — impressively high for a satellite service.
In Zambia, the residential Starlink dish and router cost 10,744 Zambian Kwacha (R9,835), while the regular monthly subscription is priced at ZMW771 (R706).
The Flat High Performance dish — geared towards professional and business users with more demanding broadband requirements — is priced at ZMW50,133.
Users who wish to use the service in other African countries will have to pay ZMW1,000 (R915) per month for regional roaming.
Those who want to take their Starlink kit and use it on another continent will have to cough up ZMW3,950 (R3,615).

Screenshot showing Starlink Roam prices for Zambian customers.
The launch in Zambia follows Starlink’s entry into Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Malawi in 2023.
According to Starlink’s coverage map, it is also scheduled to go live before the end of the year in Angola and Eswatini.
All of South Africa’s remaining neighbours — Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Zimbabwe — have estimated rollout dates sometime in 2024.
South Africa’s rollout ETA is still “unknown” due to additional regulatory requirements in the Electronic Communications Act.
The ECA requires that telecoms licensees be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups (HDGs), including black people, women, youth, and people with disabilities.
Although the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) has pointed out that Starlink could easily enter the country by establishing a local subsidiary or using a partner that met the requirements, SpaceX has explained it prioritises countries which make regulatory approval easier.
The launch in Kenya came just days after the country withdrew a rule that made it compulsory for Big Tech companies to sell 30% of their shares to Kenyans.
Starlink roaming explosion in South Africa
Despite not being officially approved for local use, several thousand households and businesses use Starlink in South Africa.
Starlink already works in the country when using the optional roaming service.
Its local customers either imported the kits themselves or used select Internet service providers (ISPs) to handle the importing and service management on their behalf.
One company that used to provide this service is Northern Cape-based IT-Lec, which focuses on rural connectivity products.
However, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) ordered it to cease offering the service in August 2023.
At that stage, it had already imported and provided over 3,000 Starlink kits to its customers, many of whom had been struggling with poor LTE services amid severe load-shedding.
To abide by Icasa’s demands, they transferred all their customers to a Mozambican operator called Starsat Africa (not to be confused with the satellite TV service StarSat).
Starsat Africa offers shipping and delivery to South Africa and 17 other African countries.
However, due to immense demand, the current estimated waiting period for a kit after paying a pre-order deposit is three months.
The company is busy securing a formal African distribution agreement with Starlink, just like Paratus Group and Jumia Group have done.
However, whereas Starsat Africa already offers the service to South Africans, Paratus and Jumia will only do so once it is officially launched locally.
The table below compares the prices of Starlink Residential’s equipment, monthly fees, and shipping in the six African countries where it is officially available and how much these items would cost when imported to South Africa.
Starlink direct import costs breakdown | |||
Country of registration and origin | Starlink Standard kit (excluding shipping to SA, importing taxes, and VAT) | Shipping fee to origin address (may vary based on specific location) |
Monthly fee with regional roaming |
Kenya | KES89,000 (R11,618) | KES3,100 (R405) | KES7,900 (R1,031) |
Malawi | MK655,000 (R10,990) | MK26,500 (R445) | MK65,000 (R1,091) |
Mozambique | MZN40,492 (R12,317) | MZN1,530 (R465) | MZN3,645 (R1,109) |
Nigeria | NGN378,000 (R9,592) | NGN16,700 (R424) | NGN49,000 (R1,243) |
Rwanda | RWF485,000 (R7,770) | RWF24,500 (R393) | RWF58,800 (R942) |
Zambia | ZMW10,744 (R9,835) | ZMW400 (R367) | ZMW1,000 (R915) |