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Starlink Bubble is slowly fading away in Zimbabwe, after millions had earlier celebrated the entrance of cheaper, faster and more mobility in internet service provision, yet we have seen a small number of individuals jumping on the bandwagon.
By The Red Pill
Yours truly has been closely following the development, with so much unethical beaurocratic practice and technical limitations, Zimbabweans will not enjoy the services as anticipated.
Since September’s official licensing, an estimated thousands have already directly purchased the kits from the Starlink website across the country with some few glitches as some banks were no being honored.
The companies that had partnered Starlink for dealerships and distribution in Zimbabwe have all not yet been cleared by the telecommunications regulator, Potraz, except 2, which are state-aligned that is TelOne and Aura meaning the rest cant operate until they are cleared.
TechnoMag once wrote in depth over this new regulation which only came up after the players had announced a partnership with StarLink, effectively this means they’re blocked from selling Starlink in ZImbabwe till the clearance, this includes players like Zodsat, Dandemutande, Frampol and Dark Fibre Africa.
Ironically, IMC which purportedly claimed exclusivity has been very quiet on the background, with speculation that they may not have had clinched the deal with Starlink itself but only the government.
While TelOne and Aura have been cleared by Potraz, these two entities have not yet delivered any kits to much anticipated Zimbabwean market, while Aura confirmed to us that they are awaiting delivery of the kits in the next few coming weeks.
Some sources have confirmed that Aura is going to be shipping a total 6 000 kits and these are not going to be easily delivered by Starlink hence the delay. President Mnangagwa’s sons have been suspected to be the powers that be behind Aura, hence it was easily cleared.
If the “clearance” takes long for other service providers, this would simply mean by the time they are allowed to operate, the market would have completely saturated and they wont have much of the enterprise market to compete against except maybe government departments and state institutions, a domain they are not even favoured or ,likely to have interest.
The biggest problem has been the unavailability of the actual kits in Zimbabwe and service delivery in Harare CBD as Starlink has marked Harare, the capital city out of capacity, meaning the total number of subscribers anticipated for such a small area has shot above-expected support, a great limit on satellite technology needing more constellation satellites.
This means generally Zimbabweans in the CBD area will endure slower speeds due to overwhelmed assigned satellites in the Harare geolocation area.Some subscribers were already complaining stating that they are getting speeds as low as 1 megabyte, forcing many to resort back to the trdional fibre suppliers in Zimbabwe.
This problem will need another starlink redress so that Zimbabweans in Harare specifically can actually enjoy internet speeds and connectivity in the concentrated area.
Starlink has come across the same problems in the United States of America across hurricane affected state where they have actually offered free internet access in the geolocked areas.
For most traditional subscribers, they are actually waiting for walk in supplies where they can easily buy these kits from various shops, a simple and common practice across the continent.
A few that are selling these devices are mainly roaming activated kits that will carry an extra fee to convert them for local access from the roaming services.
However for those that stay in Harare but have different service address can easily and directly order these kits as long as they are going to be connected from outside the Harare CBD.
Its now anyone’s guess when the government’s regulator will clear the other competitors, but as it stands those who have been cleared will obviously stand a competitive advantage of approaching the market first, so much against leveling the playing field.
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