Spot the country without Starlink

Nearly all of South Africa’s neighbours have legal access to Starlink services within their borders, with only Namibia expecting the communications technology to go live sometime later this year.

Starlink is a satellite broadband service run by Elon Musk’s private space company, SpaceX. It is supported by a network of over 6,750 low-earth orbit satellites, which SpaceX has been launching in batches since 2019.

The company’s announcement that it launched services in Lesotho makes Namibia the only one of six countries with which South Africa shares a border where Starlink is not yet activated.

This makes Lesotho one of 21 African countries with Starlink operating within their borders, a group many thought South Africa would be first to join.

South Africa was previously one of the first countries on Starlink’s list of planned rollouts, with pre-orders for the service launching locally in February 2021.

However, Starlink has said it has yet to launch operations in South Africa because of the country’s ownership requirements for telecommunications network licences.

This meant South Africans had to sit back and watch as Starlink launched in the first cohort of African countries at the beginning of 2023.

Nigeria was the first of these countries to be granted access to the low-Earth orbit (LEO) technology, which has since become its second-biggest Internet Service Provider, according to the BBC.

By the end of 2023, Starlink was operational within eight African countries: Nigeria, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Benin, Rwanda, Kenya, and Eswatini.

Starlink’s rollout started picking up in 2024, expanding its footprint to 18 countries by the end of the year, including Mozambique, South Sudan, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and Madagascar.

So far, 2025 has seen three countries launch Starlink — Niger, Liberia, and Lesotho — with another 18 expected to launch later this year.

It’s important to note that Starlink needs to be granted an operating licence before it can set up operations in a country, making negotiations a critical step.

Most countries cited Internet affordability and access as reasons for granting Starlink access to operate within their borders.

For instance, only 1.36 million people had access to the Internet in South Sudan in January 2024, according to a DataReportal report from January 2024.

That was one of the lowest Internet penetration rates in the world at just 12.1%. Similarly, only 35.5% of the population had an active cellular connection in early 2024.

This presents an excellent use case for satellite connectivity, which is also why Somalia, a country currently disrupted by civil war, recently granted Starlink an operating license.

“This initiative aligns with our vision to deliver affordable and accessible internet services to all Somalis, regardless of where they live,” said Somalia’s technology minister, Mohamed Adam Moalim Ali.

The map below shows all the countries that have Starlink, those that are expecting it, and those that have yet to confirm it. Click to expand.

Starlink and South Africa negotiating a compromise

The ownership regulations that Starlink is refusing to comply with in South Africa include ownership rules set out by the Electronic Communications Act.

The legislation states that network operators and communications service providers with a national footprint must be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups to receive operating licences.

In addition to the ownership requirements, operators must also be Level 4 B-BBEE contributors and submit their certificates to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) every year.

However, law firm Webber Wentzel explained that Icasa requires licensees to calculate their B-BBEE level differently from other industries as it does not recognise certain concessions.

For example, Icasa regulations do not recognise any of the deeming principles in the B-BBEE Codes to calculate black ownership.

This means companies like Starlink and other telcos must comply with multiple sets of differing regulations, making the process unnecessarily complex.

However, Communications Minister Solly Malatsi recently proposed a policy direction Webber Wentzel said would help eliminate dissonance between the two sets of regulations.

The policy direction also proposes, amongst other things, the introduction of equity equivalent investment programmes (EEIPs) in the ICT sector.

EEIPs, provided for under the Electronic Communications Act and the ICT Sector Code, enable multinationals to meet empowerment obligations through alternatives to the 30% ownership rule.

These programmes can include investing in local suppliers, enterprises, skills development, job creation, infrastructure support, research and innovation, and digital inclusion initiatives.

Most recently, SpaceX committed to spending R500 million to provide free broadband Internet to schools in South Africa, a proposed investment to gain local approval for Starlink.

Starlink said the addition of EEIPs in the ICT sector would allow it to expand broadband access across the country, including underserved townships, farms, communities, and rural schools.

The company said if it gets local approval, it will roll out Starlink Internet to 5,000 schools nationwide, providing free high-speed Internet connectivity to roughly 2.4 million children.