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Africans Are Turning to Starlink
- bookofjoe 4mo agohttps://archive.ph/eVaPb https://archive.ph/eVaPb
- DoesntMatter22 4mo agoDoesn’t work for me
- NavinF 4mo agoTry changing DNS. Works fine on att fiber after clicking through a cloudflare-like captcha
- Exoristos 4mo ago> Starlink ... is much pricier than mobile internet, and often costs more than even fibre broadband. The service ... halted new subscriptions for seven months to maintain connection quality. ... [T]he weather can mess up the signal: "You need a backup in those heavy months of rain." There are really no shortcuts to the immense goal of covering the African continent with reliable internet.
- DoesntMatter22 4mo agoNo short cuts but it’s an amazing service that’s benefiting millions of people already and will likely start to benefit millions more in africa
- fragmede 4mo agoI mean, it's not a shortcut to send tens of thousands of satellites into space instead of running copper wires across vast stretches of desert where they're going to get stolen, but it has certain advantages.
- asteroidburger 4mo agoIs anyone actually running new telecom copper these days? I’d be surprised if so.
- whateverboat 4mo agoThieves are not educated enough to understand the difference and will steal the fiber and try to sell it (with no success) and in the anger, destroy huge swathes of the remaining fibre.
- kibwen 4mo agoNo. By that logic, PVC pipes wouldn't be safe from thieves, because thieves wouldn't be able to understand the difference from copper pipes. Anyone who's ever touched a fiber cable before immediately understands the difference from a copper cable, and if thieves can't get paid, they're not going to waste their time stealing it.
- sltkr 4mo agoThe question is if they can tell it's fiber _before_ cutting through it and damaging it. This seems way easier with PVC pipes than with fiber cables.
- true_religion 4mo agoPeople do steal PVC pipes, albeit more commonly in bulk: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/BNI-discovers-over-700-stolen-pipes-from-GWCL-268665 https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/BNI-disco... In any case, the fiber situation in Ghana was dicy for a time because theives were cutting the fiber lines in hopes they were copper. Thieves are often in a hurry so they cut first, check, then move on.
- pixl97 4mo agoI think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of a large portion of thieves, they will destroy $100,000 in property to steal $50 in iron to pawn off. Fiber runs to cabinets and they run those cabinets over to get the metal they are made of.
- LorenDB 4mo agoI live in rural America. The story is quite similar here. My options were (a) cellular hotspot, which is slow and expensive, or (b) satellite internet, which is also slow and expensive. Despite government programs, there are no cable/fiber/DSL options in my area. Starlink fills the gap nicely; it's not blazingly fast, but pretty much meets FCC broadband definitions for $55/mo.
- sejje 4mo agoSame, except I had DSL--the local provider 'guarantees' speeds of 10Mbps to my house. So, needless to say, starlink has been amazing.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoI live in a rural neighborhood with fiber. Multiple neighbors go with Starlink because it’s cheaper and good enough.
- gonzalohm 4mo agoIs it really $55 a month?
- quantummagic 4mo agoWhy would he give an incorrect figure?
- fhdkweig 4mo agoTypos can happen.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- NamlchakKhandro 4mo agoLies
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- mikert89 4mo agoI'm in the desert in utah right now, i drove two hours offroad from a small town, turned on starlink, and got faster internet than my office in NYC. Incredible. I can run the whole starlink off a small battery pack ($100), dont even need the car on. I can bring it on long hikes, and be sure ill have internet access if i need it. completely changes the risk profile of remote outdoors activity
- grebc 4mo agoI’m not sure regular internet access is changing the risk like you say, but I agree that people like connectivity and hence will do more risky things because they think it’s safer. Rescues even with EPIRB’s can still be difficult.
- arcticfox 4mo agoThis seems like a crazy position to me. In what world is someone with connectivity not significantly safer in remote areas? Obviously doesn't help with immediately fatal scenarios (falls, drowning etc), but there are whole classes of getting-lost or losing-mobility disasters that just don't exist anymore with connectivity.
- grebc 4mo agoNot talking about day to day living. Talking about activities like hiking, mountain climbing etc and people perception of safety because they have a phone signal.
- mikert89 4mo agothis is an absurd thing to say, there are so many situations that are way safer with more information. alot of bad situations happen when people make the wrong decision under uncertainty, or they are in over their head. access to the internet, and increasingly claude, is incredible and changes alot of outdoors risk for the right users
- yoz-y 4mo ago
- mbreese 4mo agoIsn’t this a similar argument to how Africa adopted mobile phones significantly faster than other regions? When you don’t have an established wired infrastructure, it becomes significantly easier to jump technology generations. Especially if there’s no infrastructure needed to install. As others mentioned, It’s a very similar situation for rural America. My dad lives in a rural setting, and for years could only get slow geostationary satellite Internet. As soon as he got Starlink, his connectivity improved dramatically. Only now that there was an established market for rural internet users in his area, are cable and fiber lines starting to get run.
- TMWNN 4mo ago> Isn’t this a similar argument to how Africa adopted mobile phones significantly faster than other regions? You didn't read the article: >Africa’s internet infrastructure is not fit for purpose. During a communications boom in the early 2000s, the continent eschewed fixed-line internet for cheaper mobile broadband; today more than 400m Africans, the bulk of the continent’s users, gain access to the internet this way. >But the technology has not kept pace with the rapid increase in data demand from streaming and AI-powered applications.
- Zigurd 4mo agoAfrica is mostly on 4G networks, and while 3G isn't a majority of the connections, it's still the next biggest share of infrastructure, far ahead of 5G which is relatively scarce. This is in the context of a population that really depends on mobile wireless for market information if they are farmers, and for payments. Having a mobile phone can take priority over having a flush toilet. Starlink has both opportunities and challenges: 5G is faster and cheaper and more reliable. But mobile wireless revenue is low, so capex is low too. Combine this with a big rural population, and Starlink has a great opportunity, if they can find customers who can afford it.
- kibwen 4mo ago> Combine this with a big rural population, and Starlink has a great opportunity, if they can find customers who can afford it. This is the rub. The primary market here are people whose communities aren't wealthy enough to afford infrastructure that would provide superior service (5G being a step up from satellite, and wired being a step up from that). So Starlink depends on there existing a growing population of people who aren't too poor to afford internet service in the first place, while also relying on the hope that those people don't become too wealthy to afford long-term infrastructure investments.
- pgt 4mo agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40248231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40248231 tldr; Starlink doesn't work in South Africa, Elon's home country, because the ANC and its lawfare arm ICASA demands they hand over 30% to the State because of BEE laws.
- dreambuffer 4mo agoThis is misleading, Starlink does not need to provide "30% to the state", they only have to give 30% ownership to a local company with historically disenfranchised owners providing real economic value to South Africa. This can be a private company.
- IncreasePosts 4mo agoDoes ownership ever get assigned to people who aren't political cronies of the current government?
- dreambuffer 4mo agoYes, all the time, because it is a private arrangement between the foreign company and the local company. Private companies are in no meaningful sense "cronies" of the government, even if they were accredited by the formal regulating body. You cannot point to a single major case of B-BEEE favouritism, it is a legal framework that is almost always impartial.
- IncreasePosts 4mo agoHitachi famously got caught doing exactly this: using b-bbee as a front to funnel bribe money to the ruling party.
- dreambuffer 4mo agoNo, that had nothing to do with B-BBEE abuse.
- robear 4mo agoI am not sure how to write this without it sounding like an ad for Starlink. It definitely isn't. Just trying to add an anecdote to the conversation. I live in Canada and there are a small number of people that I know that have given up faster, cheaper internet from Telus/cable/etc for Starlink. I think what it comes down to is people are tried of the two year contracts and having to negotiate a better rate and never being able to get the same deal as a new customer. Loyalty is punished.
- stevage 4mo agoHow do they know Starlink isn't going to jack the prices up?
- robear 4mo agoThey aren't thinking that far ahead. It is just the immediate rate they are on. If it doesn't work out, they can always go back to Telus, etc at a way better rate than they had as an existing customer.
- Aboutplants 4mo agoThey eventually will but there is also coming competition from satellite providers as well to suppress prices long term. Those ground based providers will still have a lot of infrastructure in the ground and they won’t go down without a fight.
- Rebelgecko 4mo agoThey just did a month ago, so it'll probably be a few months before they do it again
- Aboutplants 4mo agoFrom a pure competition standpoint, Starlink existing puts pressure on the entire industry all at once. No longer are so many people bound by a sole supplier in certain communities and now actual competition will eventually forced these companies to start fighting hard for customers. If there is one thing Elon is good at it’s scaling and that pressure should mount pretty quickly
- dreambuffer 4mo agoStarlink is a massive national security risk, and that is one of the primary reasons it has not been allowed in South Africa. It's also why Starlink has pushed so aggressively to establish itself in South Africa, going as far as to hold private meetings with the Democratic Alliance and even spamming their customers with emails urging them to put pressure on the government.
- Havoc 4mo ago>one of the primary reasons it has not been allowed in South Africa. That's just nonsense. The regulator has been very clear on what the hold up is. A ECNS license is needed, which in turn requires 30% black ownership which musky boy isn't willing to do and isn't likely to change his mind on given his stance on DEI. That's why the communication minister tried to create an alternative pathway around the 30% requirement https://www.businessday.co.za/companies/2025-12-12-starlink-closer-to-entering-sa-market-as-malatsi-orders-icasa-to-change-empowerment-regulations/ https://www.businessday.co.za/companies/2025-12-12-starlink-...
- dreambuffer 4mo agoB-BEEE exists as a kind of "national security risk insurance", that is why it is only applied to sectors like Telecomms and Mining. So my statement is not incorrect.
- drnick1 4mo ago> requires 30% black ownership What an absurd requirement.
- dreambuffer 4mo agoThe goal is to hedge national security risk by giving ownership of key industries to native South Africans and especially those who have historically been denied economic opportunities by the apartheid government.
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- aaron695 4mo ago[dead]
- napierzaza 4mo ago[dead]
- tolerance 4mo agoThe African diaspora is under-represented here! Or they (on the continent) are asleep.
- snohobro 4mo agoI worked on the Starlink program in the Redmond facility during the growth from a couple sats as proof of concept to thousands of sats regularly providing internet. I’ve since moved on to other ventures, but I’m still incredibly proud of what I did there. Mostly because it brought internet to those unserved and those who no one was ever going to serve, at least any time soon. I believe the internet and access to the same knowledge and tools as everyone else is such an equalizer. My favorite was getting the monthly emails with stories from rural areas or countries with spotty to no internet and how many of those folks could now commune with the rest of the planet and take full advantage of the wealth of knowledge provided by the internet.
- cactusplant7374 4mo ago> take full advantage of the wealth of knowledge provided by the internet Seems like a bit of a stretch in modern times. Do you have any idea what percentage of traffic is TikTok/YouTube/Facebook?
- llbbdd 4mo agoAll places laden with useful information.
- cactusplant7374 4mo agoThat the average person doesn't consume. Yes, that is true.
- snohobro 4mo agoI mean yeah, it’s a ton and totally a topic worth discussing on its own. Those aren’t the only options though. There is still plenty of available data out there for people to access and do practical and educational things with outside of purely entertainment. That’s a choice anyone accessing the internet has to make, and I was able to help give them that choice. Better to have a choice to learn and grow vs scroll than have no choice at all I’d say.
- CursedSilicon 4mo ago
- ultrahax 4mo agoI keep a Starlink subscription as my WAN2, after someone started a fire in a nearby fiber cabinet and managed to knock out Frontier and Spectrum at once. It’s worth it to me as a bullet-proof WAN2, especially working from home.
- IFC_LLC 4mo agoI've lived in SA for about a year. I would have paid a lot of money for something like Starlink a couple of years ago. Where you have internet it does not work while the local power is out. And it was not that stable and at times we were sitting 10 hours without power a day. And that's in Joburg. And 5g was hard to come by. So I can only imagine that locals are happy to see such a thing. Especially if you can run it from a car charger or something.
- bridgettegraham 4mo agoIn South Africa we are not allowed to make use of Starlink. The reason: our government insists that the owners of Starlink give > 50% of ownership of the contract exclusively to black people (our discriminatory BBEEE that explicitly states, openly, in any advert in public, that a company is allowed to ONLY EMPLOY black people and not white people), which Elon Musk and his company refuses to do (good for them). That is the reason we can't have Starlink.
- WhereIsTheTruth 4mo agoAnd rightfully so Remember the US backlash against Huawaie over 5G towers? African nations should have the exact same sovereignty/national security concerns regarding US tech, specially given the well documented history of the NSA and CIA leveraging their digital platforms for intelligence/spying It's actually funny how the discourse is never the same when it come to US interests vs sovereign nations
- sjducb 4mo agoThere are lots of white South Africans. I believe musk is one. Starlink is majority owned by a South African. The law isn’t about foreign/doneatic. It’s about black/white. Increasingly this state authorised racism is now extending to black people. The violent ethnic cleansing against black Milawians by black South Africans is terrifying.
- WhereIsTheTruth 4mo ago
- true_religion 4mo agoThe problem of it not working well during the rain is a huge issue in countries where cloud cover can last days, and 3-5 months of the year has regular rain fall.
- gorfian_robot 4mo agoworks fine in the rain. source: oregon coast.
- true_religion 4mo agoThen I’m not sure why it works terribly here on the Ghanaian coast.
- bridgettegraham 4mo agoJust for interest's sake and so this continues to be visible in the world: In South Africa we are not allowed to make use of Starlink. The reason: our government insists that the owners of Starlink give > 50% of ownership of the contract exclusively to black people (our discriminatory BBEEE that explicitly states, openly, in any advert in public, that a company is allowed to ONLY EMPLOY black people and not white people), which Elon Musk and his company refuses to do (good for them). That is the reason we can't have Starlink.
- jatora 4mo agoThe racism of south africa astounds me.
- bmqpo 4mo ago[dead]
- inemesitaffia 4mo agoThe example isn't contrived. Before Starlink was official in Nigeria you had to import and pay $150 a month. By the time it was official there were already thousands because people are already paying more for FWA.
- bmqpo 4mo agoAnd most of those unofficial terminals were in the big cities by upper middle class folks and not rural areas. As at the end of June 2026, Starlink had just about 90k subscribers in a country of over 200 million people after over 40 months of official operation.
- inemesitaffia 4mo agoFor those users it makes a big difference. I can see my MTN (and Airtel) tower but both of them are connected via microwave and go down together. If there were more users we'd be talking about neocolonialism and capital flight. Eventually is ways away (and will likely be in Ado-Ekiti, the capital). When I lived in Rural Ekiti (I still live in a rural area), I could only get 2G while 3G was deployed.
- nidnogg 4mo agoI read these Starlink hope stories and get inspired now and then. But the truth is: I've bought a mini and standard, and on my mini I've got maybe a couple of good anecdotes in it. But the rest of it? The 97%? Pure fucking hustle to work. A crying sham of a service. I cannot rely on this thing to save my life for a single zoom call at work.
- warumdarum 4mo agoAs expected one can work around dysfunctional state trlcos but the base problem remains- the culturally caused taxation of entrepreneurs by leeching families snd communities. This dysfunctional culture is the single thing that is holding africa back. Same as with the middle east islamis inability to form working states because the biggest social unit the culture allows to form is the family clan. Even where oil money or trade taxation allows for western/eastern success cosplay, the ministries and armies are filled with family at the highest ranks. One does not have a nation, a meta family. And all the cofabulayions about past injustices, do not help these stuck cultures.
- inemesitaffia 4mo agoSometimes cheaper, sometimes better, accessible everywhere.
- LIMEVINCE 4mo ago[dead]
- angry_octet 4mo agoStarlink is going to completely gut the local telcos, terrestrial fiber is never going to have the $ to achieve critical mass. So when, eventually, SpaceX or the US Govt wants to apply leverage over Africa, they will have to bend the knee. Or we'll have a hiatus in launches or a space war, and as they constellation burns up so will internet access. Africa will be in the dark.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- NetMageSCW 4mo agoAnything that causes the constellation to be abandoned will effect a lot more than Africa and be a much bigger problem.
- angry_octet 4mo agoSo African problems will be irrelevant if the rest of the world has stock market problems? Please.
- dkobia 4mo agoWorth remembering that many African telcos are not just mobile phone/data providers but also digital wallets (mobile money) - much of the GDP flows through them. Companies like Safaricom are the de facto financial utility of the country, so they are not going anywhere any time soon. That said Starlink is forcing the telcos to innovate and expand footprints. They’ve held very comfortable politically protected monopolies for far too long.
- avipars 4mo agohttps://archive.md/eVaPb https://archive.md/eVaPb
- fabiovovola 4mo agoIt's a honest company, delivers what promises, if you want to transfer the ownership, one click does it. If you want go to standby mode, one click, no tricks. I'm tired of companies tricking you everytime you need to change the service.
- crises-luff-6b 4mo ago[dead]