The National Communications Authority (NCA), Ghana’s telecoms regulator, cautioned the general public Dec. 7 against using services purported to be from Starlink following reports of equipment being sold and operated in the country.
“We wish to inform the general public that, the NCA has neither licensed the operations of Starlink in Ghana nor type-approved any of their equipment,” the NCA said in a news release.
While SpaceX only expects to launch Starlink commercially in Ghana in the third quarter of 2024, the company’s sprawling low Earth orbit network already covers the country and others that have yet to permit the services.
Regulators in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Senegal have recently issued similar warnings to the public and Starlink resellers operating without permission.
It seems like third-parties are buying Starlink terminals and reselling them in regions where Starlink service is not yet available. Does this even work? I was under the impression that Starlink terminals were geo-locked to a specific region/cell. Is this no longer the case?
I'm also slightly confused at this section:
Those providing Starlink services in South Africa without permission could face a fine of around $264,000 or 10% of their annual turnover for every day the offense continued, whichever is greater, the regulator warned.
Who would receive the fine? SpaceX for providing service where they weren't supposed to, or the Starlink terminal resellers for selling hardware where they weren't supposed to?
Africa will be a huge market for Starlink I think.
Regarding the fee, probably the seller concerning the sale of the terminal. But Starlink would have to provide a contract, so they could be liable as well. Depends who the contract party is - in this case I suppose it is an abroad address. That should be easy to fix for Starlink by geoblocking for now
I guess the reason it works at all right now is due to RV type mobile contracts
Why would Africa be a huge market for Starlink specifically? All of the people who can afford it live in cities that have perfectly good internet. This article is about Ghana specifically, which has excellent internet in the cities.
As for rural areas, sure the internet sucks or isn't available at all. But not many people live there and they don't have the money to spend it on something expensive like Starlink. But that's the same all across the world, not just Africa. And in most rural areas mobile phones are becoming the main source of internet for most people. It isn't the fastest, but it works plenty fast enough for things like WhatsApp groups and other social media.
So what makes you think Africa would be a huge market, compared to other places?
I think this generalization is far from valid
This is assuming it's not cheaper/faster to just use mobile service, which has had great adoption in Africa and will probably be true in a lot of areas as you noted. Still, there's a ton of people in Africa and a lot of area to cover. I think there is a good market there for Starlink