Starlink is now cheaper than leading internet provider in some African countries

https://restofworld.org/2025/starlink-cheaper-internet-africa/

by impish9208 • 2 years ago

260 211 2 years ago

restofworld.org

spwa42• 2 years ago

I wouldn't worry about it. Government officials will find a way to change this ...

Even now there's countries with a tax on unlimited internet on cell phones.

bpodgursky6• 2 years ago

Starlink is significantly more resistant to graft than terrestrial service.

For the most part SpaceX is playing nice with regulators, but if Zimbabwe's government tried to extort Starlink users, SpaceX could just open up service and Zimbabwe could do absolutely nothing to stop them.

cactusplant7374• 2 years ago

Wouldn't that be considered a form of dumping if they offered it for free?

voakbasda• 2 years ago

Sure they could. They could make it illegal to possess Starklink equipment within their borders, in the name of “national security” or whatnot.

jplrssn• 2 years ago

Isn't Starlink subject to frequency spectrum licensing in each country it operates in?

duxup3• 2 years ago

Has Starlink as an org shown any interest in resisting local pressure to that extent?

I'm asking, I don't know, but even when technically feasible there are lots of concerns with defying local governments, good and bad.

gamblor9562• 2 years ago

Zimbabwe could do absolutely nothing to stop them

They could issue an order to local payment processors to block all payments to Starlink...like Brazil did. In this particular hypothetical, Zimbabwe would have more solid legal grounds for blocking payment than the Brazilian judge (TLDR: X didn't adhere to all of Brazil's regulations and refused to pay the resulting fines so a judge deemed Starlink a related company and blocked payments to Starlink until X complied.)

bodhiandphysics2• 2 years ago

It's a little more complicated than that. There are two international treaties at play here (that the US has ratified)... the Outer Space Treaty requires that countries regulate the actions in outer space of their citizens and companies, in compliance with the outer space treaty and other international treaties (cf. Article VI and Article III). The Convention of the International Telecommunications Union of 1997 (the last version the us has ratified) specifies that the US shall abide by the rules of the ITU, including in allocation of satellite spectrum (Article 6). The ITU allows countries to limit the use of spectrum in certain bands (including those used by starlink) within their borders.

So Zimbabwe actually can ban starlink. And if it ignores Zimbabwe... well Zimbabwe will complain to the ITU, and the ITU to the US. The US would be under obligation to regulate Starlink... with the minor exception of its not clear that the US has any agency that can, at least under current law.

Anyway, it would be a total mess if Elon did that (except in a country like Russia where the US wants him to do that)... and I have no idea what would happen.

immibis3• 2 years ago

Note that Starlink requires a ground station near the users.

duxup3• 2 years ago

I had a coworker who grew up in Africa and was involved with ISPs there. He had some pretty important jobs in a couple countries.

His explanation why he came to the US to do what were lower level jobs was that in the places he worked it was all who you knew and if your given buddy who got you that job fell out of the good graces of those in power ... you were screwed forever.

He had enough of that, good guy, very capable, worked his way up again in the US.

throwafrica• 2 years ago

you better read history on colonization in Africa. letting foreign companies to have a grip on resources (data and propaganda channels in modern days) wont end well for host nations.

If you guys are so pro business why blocking TikTok and other Chinese firms?

aurizon2• 2 years ago

Most African countries operate internet access via buddy/bribery cartels to tax the people highly and enrich the bribers. They hate Starlink's access to anyone who can import a starlink terminal and set it up and they seize them whenever they find them. If Starlink has a licensed path = they would want the lost bribes to be replaced by their fees. All in all = a huge drag on internet access in Africa. A few countries escape this - a precious few..

Timber-6539• 2 years ago

It's more nuanced than that. African governments, like any other government, want to regulate and control access to all communications and related infrastucture. Governments for example would like a killswitch they can force Musk to push if need be.

Also ISPs are big businesses with telecom companies paying huge sums for licenses (3G,4G licensing etc). Starlink is seen as jumping to the front of the line with little to no similar license requirements (or bribes if you want to call them).

aurizon2• 2 years ago

Yes, it does upset their apple cart = what he intended IMHO. The sale of spectrum in the USA/Canada also lards up costs under the guise of 'free market competition' LOL = why internet is USA/Canada is so expensive there compared to many places in Europe/Asia

cadamsdotcom• 2 years ago

Safaricom and other legacy providers have responded by lowering prices and increasing internet speeds.

Super exciting to see competition working.

modeless• 2 years ago

The competition will get even stronger when SpaceX's Starship launches the next generation of Starlink satellites. More satellites with more capacity per satellite and at lower altitudes could make Starlink a viable competitor even in some urban areas with crappy ISPs.

Also I hope Amazon succeeds with their Kuiper constellation. Imagine two competing global satellite ISPs!

scotty793• 2 years ago

You mean Starship 2, right? Because Starship top capacity demonstrated was 1 banana. That's why Elon already started hyping how awesome Starship 2 is gonna be. Because it becomes obvious for everybody that Starship will perform below even most modest past predictions.

mmmlinux• 2 years ago

Yeah, Twice the space junk!

Dig1t• 2 years ago

Google Fiber had the same effect in Austin, it's so awesome.

There are no data caps on any providers because Google Fiber doesn't have them. Everyone upgraded their service to try to match Google's speeds, so Gigabit is easy to get pretty much anywhere in the city. Google is offering up to 8gb now and ATT is trying to match those speeds.

Company reps regularly knock on doors trying to get people to switch to their service offering deep discounts for 1 year+.

usefulcat• 2 years ago

Can confirm. Where I live in Austin I have a choice of no less than 4 different ISPs, two cable and two fiber. Not even counting wireless options, which probably also exist.

vyrotek2• 2 years ago

I'm watching this happen right now in Mesa, AZ. We just got Google Fiber a few months ago. All of a sudden there are more choices and better prices.

JKCalhoun2• 2 years ago

Just a guess — but I imagine that Starlink passing over a continent and not having any customers below would be a waste of that orbit arc. I mean Starlink could just give away the bandwidth until it actually was running low on it.

Ringz• 2 years ago

That’s not how satellite orbit works. Imagine that the earth rotates below the sat orbit. And that the sat orbit doesn’t go parallel to Latitude or Longitude.

davio• 2 years ago

$633 (USD) per month in Zimbabwe is crazy. I could see Starlink becoming the internet backbone for micro-ISPs to slice.

hooli_gan• 2 years ago

I wonder if they used the official exchange rate or the black market one

inemesitaffia5• 2 years ago

It's the price for 100 Mbps. You can pay for as low as 5.

faraixyz2• 2 years ago

That's if you pay in local currency. They have "promotional" packages in US dollars at $150 for a 100MBps line.

faraixyz2• 2 years ago

I used to be quoted that for 20MBps and even 8MBps! these days it's a bit better since you can get that for about $150 if you're lucky enough to be near a fibre line.

bryanlarsen5• 2 years ago

100Mb/s continuously utilized is 100MB * 60 * 60 * 24 * 31 = 33 TB. AWS egress is $50/TB.

bauruine• 2 years ago

AWS is a perfect comparison because they are also crazy expensive for egress. You get 10 Gbit/s for around 600$ in every NA and European datacenter.

bpodgursky6• 2 years ago

Kenyan telecoms have also raised concerns about Starlink taking market share away from local companies that employ thousands of people on the African continent.

The point of infrastructure is to deliver services which enable productivity and quality of life for the broader population. Public services are not a jobs program. I will continue screaming this into the void until I turn transform into a pickle.

throwaway484764• 2 years ago

Africa is a graveyard of infrastructure.

causi• 2 years ago

It's all so tiresome.

kstrauser• 2 years ago

I've gotta agree on this. That's a bummer for the thousands of people working with hyper-expensive providers. It might not even be those providers' faults: it's probably not cheap being the first company to run infrastructure into less developed areas. And yet, should we hold down the millions of people who want affordable Internet access because of it? I don't think so.

Edit: And for transparency, I'm about as far from a Musk fan as it's possible to be. I'm not saying this because it's him doing it. I'm glad someone is, and if happens to be him, fine, so be it.

mschuster91• 2 years ago

Public services are not a jobs program.

Indeed but wealth extraction from already piss poor countries by artificially dumping prices that cannot be sustained by domestic industry has been a problem with Africa for decades, and that after centuries of colonialism on top of it.

Africa used to have a vibrant textile and agricultural industry - Simbabwe for example was known until two, three decades ago as the "grain chamber of Africa" - but Western "donations" aka mitumba and "aid" programs completely wiped out the domestic industry, leaving many countries that were self-sufficient now utterly dependant on foreign supply.

flerchin• 2 years ago

That's interesting. We are taught that Zimbabwe's farming collapse was due to government appropriation from folks with European heritage to folks with African heritage.

asdasdsddd• 2 years ago

Lmao its definitely not because they kicked out all the white farmers and indian small business owners right?

rad_gruchalski• 2 years ago

Here’s some lecture for you: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe.

sealeck• 2 years ago

Indeed but wealth extraction from already piss poor countries by artificially dumping prices that cannot be sustained by domestic industry has been a problem with Africa for decades, and that after centuries of colonialism on top of it.

You also need to work out what is happening with the money that is saved. Sure, people working for the local ISP are probably out of a job, but more people can access the internet at much more reasonable rates. This boosts the economy; probably more than the local ISP did!

betaby• 2 years ago

Public services are not a jobs program.

It definitely feels like a one in Canada (or France).

zerotolerance• 2 years ago

There is a lot of idealism wrapped up in this statement and just because we think something should be does not make it truth.

ellisd• 2 years ago

This talk had some very interesting slides from the ITU on internet price due to data scarcity and lack of options.

"38C3 - Net Neutrality: Why It Still Matters (More Than Ever!)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_gqhpLSc_8

antithesis-nl3• 2 years ago

This is slightly misleading, as most Internet access in African countries is via mobile phones, not 'traditional' in-home connections.

That being said, it would be interesting to see what happened if all of, say, Lagos (fastest-growing city+suburbs in the world) suddenly started using Starlink exclusively.

"Good things" is not very high on my list...

nn3• 2 years ago

Lagos can't use starlink very much because starlink has limited capacity in any given area. The future sats might improve that a bit with more sats and more capacity per sat, and also there will be more non starlink constellations, but it's an inherent problem. If they targeted any densely populated area they would vastly over-provision the rest of the more sparsely populated world.

So in general it's good news for the rural population (if they can afford it), but it doesn't really help too much for the cities.

antithesis-nl3• 2 years ago

Lagos can't use starlink very much because starlink has limited capacity in any given area

That's very much not what the Starlink-proponents are, loudly, proclaiming. Because, satellite-peer-to-peer stuff, Elon-magic in general, and whatever.

Please note: I think that Starlink is mostly space pollution, and that offering meaningful Internet connectivity to Africa, or rural America, or anywhere mostly involves 'lots of fiber', some radio, and lots of cooperation.

But: "just get your Starlink dish and be done" is definitely an Internet Truth, and it's Wrong, and I think it's worth Pointing Out.

breadwinner• 2 years ago

There is a national security risk angle to this. Elon has been talking to Putin and Putin has been making requests on behalf of Xi Jinping such as not turning on Starlink over Taiwan [1]. Musk has also been turning off Starlink when he decides there is a risk of nuclear war [2].

An American corporation undermining American foreign policy is a security risk. No citizen, especially a crazy one like Elon, should have this much power.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/musk-putin-secret-conversat...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66752264

bryanlarsen5• 2 years ago

turning off Starlink

He didn't turn it off, he refused to turn it on over Crimea when Ukraine requested he do so. Turning it on without the permission of the State Department would have been illegal.

swarnie• 2 years ago

An American company providing American services via American government funding with a founder who can't leave the next American presidents beach house if he tried undermines American foreign policy.

If i wanted to control a country and couldn't get my hands on their banking system i guess their communication systems would do...

I just dont see it somehow.

immibis3• 2 years ago

Countries are choosing to align themselves with China and Russia rather than the US, so this shouldn't be a problem for those countries.

NewJazz• 2 years ago

Korea, Japan, Phillipines, Taiwan, Australia, India might have different thoughts

ImJamal• 2 years ago

Elon literally didn't turn it on because of the US government rules. How is a person / company doing what the government wants undermining government policy?

josefritzishere• 2 years ago

How can you state something is cheaper when it doesnt have fixed rates? That claim can only be true at a relatively narrow, fixed point in time.

pelagicAustral6• 2 years ago

It is also the case in the Falkland Islands, where the horrendous de-facto ISP charges £110 a month for 100 GB [0] of data usage at a top download speed of 5 (five, literal five [V in roman]) MBPS, while Starlink offers unlimited usage for £60 per month at an average download speed of 130 MBPS.

We are still facing challenges due to an exclusive license government have with this company, known for their predatory conduct [1]... People here are having to use Chilean addresses to register the kits and pay for a mobile package.

[0] https://www.sure.co.fk/broadband/broadband-packages/

[1] https://guernseypress.com/news/2024/10/02/sure-ordered-to-pa...

lxgr2• 2 years ago

Is Starlink also officially prohibited like in Saint Helena [1]? Seems to be a very similar situation (down to the same ISP Sure!).

That said, there I do somewhat see the benefits of giving a fibreoptics provider exclusivity for a while in such a small market.

[1] https://www.sainthelena.gov.sh/2023/news/reminder-on-the-use..., previous discussion see also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37645945

Havoc• 2 years ago

For what it's worth Sure in Jersey (channel islands) was fantastic. 80ish bucks for symetrical unlimited gigabit

pelagicAustral6• 2 years ago

De facto it is... but importing the kit is not illegal. Government expects to charge a license of £5000 for each person wanting to use Starlink in an official (legal) way, and being able to justify the use of it as well... Fortunately, after a public petition, legislators are now willing to have a look into the obscene license fee... Time will tell.

snodnipper• 2 years ago

Difficult situation. 5 MBPS was certainly better than nothing in the past...and yet the Sure business (now) appears largely obsolete with Starlink, Kuiper etc.

PaulDavisThe1st2• 2 years ago

THis is something I worry about in rural NM. 3 local tribes just got a bit more than $20M for broadband infrastructure, and you have to ask ... as much as I hate Elon both before and after he went batshit insane, why not just use starlink? I mean, what justification can there be for putting in new wired infrastructure at this point?

layer8• 2 years ago

5 Mbps

Less than a year ago, relatives of mine in rural France still only had around 1.5 Mbps via ADSL. Video chat was borderline impossible. YouTube wasn’t possible in real time (i.e. buffering took significantly longer than the runtime).

rozap3• 2 years ago

This is how it is in semi rural Olympia, WA. I'm about 20 minutes from the state capitol, but the only options are 1.5mbps ADSL, or starlink. 4g/5g arrived last year, which is a great backup when starlink is down (frequent).

lloeki• 2 years ago

To be fair France has had this national policy of "digital availability, leave no one behind."

This resulted in my mother (remote village with ~100ish people) and father (there might be like 10 houses along a mountain road, several km from the village).

Both got upgraded from ReADSL (512k/128k, sometimes 1M on good days, 0kbps on bad ones) to 1Gbps symmetric FTTH a few years ago.

It's absolutely not economically viable to lay out fiber so it has to come from politics, which also mandates that fiber must be shared to prevent predatory pricing through local monopolies.

_zagj• 2 years ago

Do you actually live in the Falklands? That's pretty neat.

pelagicAustral6• 2 years ago

I do indeed =)

teruakohatu• 2 years ago

This is the sad situation in many Pacific nations. ISPs charge a fortune (an absolute not relative fortune) for internet services to very low income populations. Starlink is of course banned.

Meanwhile not far away in New Zealand, with a much wealthier population Starlink is prolific in rural areas. I am sure it’s also super popular in rural Australia.

scarface_74• 2 years ago

How do you ban something that is in the sky?

bigfatkitten5• 2 years ago

I am sure it’s also super popular in rural Australia.

It is indeed.

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/n...

It is also popular in urban areas. Starlink's availability map shows "sold out" in Brisbane (population 2.5 million) and Perth (2.1 million) because it's much faster than the mediocre VDSL2 services otherwise on offer to most of the population in those cities.

guybedo2• 2 years ago

As a resident of a small pacific country where ISP charges >$100/month for relatively low quality of service, i sure can understand the problem and how interesting Starlink looks like.

But one thing to keep in mind, is that usually ISPs in small countries can't compete on price because they don't have enough scale and enough customers, in the end they just can't compete with a juggernaut like Starlink.

Although as a customer i'd love to just use Starlink and pay less for better quality of service, these local ISPs are important actors of the local economy. If these companies shutdown because of international competition, it's money going to the US, and the local economy taking a hit ...

JumpCrisscross2• 2 years ago

these local ISPs are important actors of the local economy. If these companies shutdown because of international competition, it's money going to the US, and the local economy taking a hit

This is a pretty terrible justification for maintaining obsolete infrastructure.

ricardobeat2• 2 years ago

If the cost of Starlink is half of the local ISP, you now have 50% of that revenue stream going back into the local economy instead of a single company. And the benefit far outweights the cost - 100Mbps+ for thousands of people can be transformative (hoping they all not just start using tiktok), vs a dozen ISP employees. Might not be as bad of a deal as it seems.

gopalv• 2 years ago

Although as a customer i'd love to just use Starlink and pay less for better quality of service

The radio spectrum is far more limited, so the more people use it, the slower it should get.

If these companies shutdown because of international competition, it's money going to the US

The ideal "free market" result of this is that the ISP lowers prices in response or improves the service, in a rational competitive market.

The question is about customer density - the ISPs + fiber works great with density in miles while Starlink works better with lower density.

So hopefully the cities get better wired and villages get better wireless at the same time.

prmph2• 2 years ago

But if more companies can start up locally and succeed in the digital economy because of better and cheaper internet, is it not a net benefit to the country?

labster• 2 years ago

Just run an undersea cable to Argentina, easy peasy. Argentina should be more than willing to help out their fellow citizens in the Malvinas, right?

pelagicAustral6• 2 years ago

Nice one. I think recently, we stand a better chance to get fiber from Antarctica: https://www.goremagallanes.cl/wordpress/anuncian-proyecto-qu...

bhouston• 2 years ago

This may be an incorrect generalization, but I thought I read that in much of Africa, people do not really use fixed ISPs. They just use the cell phone infrastructure for their internet needs via their phones. I understand this is because cell phone infrastructure is a lot cheaper to roll out and also that there was less desktop computers, etc to plug into ethernet cables.

So this article seems to be comparing against something that isn't very popular in the first place - fixed ISPs.

ekwogefee• 2 years ago

It's cheaper, at least where I live in Central Africa.

You can pay as your budget allows — per day, per hour, night bundles, or even smaller data packages like 150MB.

Public Wi-Fi isn’t common in places like malls, gyms, schools, offices, or hospitals here. However, mobile data ensures you stay connected on your cellphone.

I've switched between three ISPs in the past three months, all of which have been disappointing, mainly due to poor customer service. With cellular data, I can easily top up using mobile money whenever my data runs out.

I also use my phone’s hotspot to connect my PCs at home or on the go.

ge962• 2 years ago

150MB? damn, that's like a SPA

codeforafrica• 2 years ago

That is technically correct, but we also pay for the data through the nose. I use two mobile providers here in Tanzania. From one I got a dedicated data SIM card, where I pay 1000TZS (40ct) per GB (the normal price listed on the website is double, but for some reason there is always a 100% bonus included). The other is a regular SIM card where data costs 2000TZS (80ct) per GB (occasionally they offer a bonus where i get an extra 1.5GB for the same price). In Uganda earlier I paid $8 for a 12GB package.

If you need a lot of data then a wired connection is a lot cheaper. If you can get it, that is. Fiber is only available in large cities. And even there, only in areas with enough demand to make it worth putting in the cable.

scoobytusk• 2 years ago

problem is musk has shown that he can shut a country down on a whim. we've seen him doing with starlink with ukraine, and twitter with... anyone that opposes him.

for all the great things starlink does and is, it should not be at the whims of a egomaniacal drug addict.

crowcroft5• 2 years ago

Unbelievable value for money. Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than proper fibre though?

It's probably already at a point where from a cost vs. benefit perspective I don't know if we should be laying a lot more cable, but I wonder if it will ever make the existing cables obsolete.

daveoc64• 2 years ago

No. Starlink won't be able to offer enough capacity to completely eliminate fibre, even in rural areas.

crowcroft5• 2 years ago

I can see that being true in high density areas, but I've got to think even now it's good enough that you really should question if rural areas should bother with fibre?

lurking_swe3• 2 years ago

it will never be better than fiber for the simple fact that’s it’s less reliable. The “uptime” of a fiber connection to the home will most likely be higher than a fiber-like connection from a satellite. And you’ll have better “ping”.

Fiber doesn’t care about cloudy days, typical storms, etc.

Starlink is of course superior when there’s a massive natural disaster, or major power loss to your region. Or if you’re in a rural area with zero other good options.

udosan2• 2 years ago

I‘ve had Starlink for over 2 years, not had a single perceptible minute of outage including in thunderstorms. Might have been slower than usual but not enough to notice. I switched because fibre in our rural area was way less reliable.

crowcroft5• 2 years ago

If web servers were deployed to space, and everyone was connecting through satellites would there be any upside for ping?

Sure New York to Ohio is always going to be fastest over fibre, but what about New Zealand to London? Not sure how much that matters though and the speed of light is a pretty hard limit to what's possible.

chasd00• 2 years ago

Will it be possible for Starlink to ever be better than proper fibre though?

i doubt it, the speed of light is only so fast. Latency up to LEO, down to earth, back to LEO, down to you will always be more than to your local telco CO and back.

crowcroft5• 2 years ago

Yea, this makes sense, but what if web servers are deployed to space?

I don't imagine it will ever be 'better'. Like wifi though, at some point it will probably be good enough that for 90+% of use cases the tradeoff of cables isn't worth it.

Like I know ethernet is better, but very rarely does that little bit better latency or connection stability practically matter.

zizee3• 2 years ago

Fibre will always be better for densely populated areas. But for less dense satellite is making a lot of sense.

However, for nation states there is a lot of value in having redundancy and sovereignty over your telecommunications infrastructure. Having a foreign country's company being sole provider could put you in a tough position (for the good/bad of your population).

extraduder_ire3• 2 years ago

If they get satellite to satellite communication working across the entire globe, there's one niche usecase where it's certainly better. Latency over very long distances.

Light travels faster in a vacuum (laser in space) than it does through glass (fibre optic cable), when the gains from that exceed the trip up and down to the satellites you're coming out ahead in terms of latency. It may also be a more direct path than following undersea cables, but I haven't checked.

For bandwidth and regular internet connectivity, you can't really beat fibre. It's just so compact and speedy enough.

somethoughts• 2 years ago

Without seeing the underlying costs its hard to really know if this is like early Uber/Lyft where investors are trying subsidizing growth of a service in order to grow marketshare.

Long term - once the local ISPs are out of business, then do prices go up and to either cover costs and/or excess profits start to go to the investors.

kwakubiney• 2 years ago

A bit skeptical about the article because in Ghana, Starlink is mostly used by the elites. Majority of people stick to mobile data or the local ISPs because it is known to be cheaper. Also, I wonder which fixed ISP the writers speak of (with respect to Ghana) because those price ranges seem a bit too extreme to be that popular in Ghana. And also, way more expensive than what the local ISPs provide.

Edit: It seems I might be wrong and the perceived high cost comes from the actual starlink device and not the internet plan. The article just compares the internet plan prices. The cost of the device and the restrictions on usage (can’t use in different locations etc) serves a deterrent to the average Ghanaian anyway.

applied_heat• 2 years ago

In Canada I am going to threaten changing to starlink the when my new telus fibre comes up for renewal and they inevitably want to double the price, and also I would be pleased to never have to use Rogers again

inemesitaffia5• 2 years ago

Headline is right but the numbers in the article are wrong

Starlink is now cheaper than leading internet provider in some African countries

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