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The much anticipated Starlink earthquake did not happen and the craze has quickly fizzled in Zimbabwe, with the capital city Harare, Chitungwiza, Bindura, Marondera, Chinhoyi, Chegutu, and Bindura, meaning all the major towns surrounding the capital city have been declared sold out and out of capacity while facing very slow connectivity speeds.
These are predominantly the heartbeat of digital activity, of course, the other main cities are still currently safe in Zimbabwe, but the net has been widening with great appetite and excitement, Starlink has failed to service the heartbeat of Zimbabwe.
The move has quickly affirmed the notion that fibre is here to stay for generations and it can not be replaced by satellite technology as it is infinite by nature and design, but the satellite is more complimentary, forcing many to go back to fibre and reconsider stability and speed as paramount.
The Problem is however not only facing Harare, Zimbabwe but many densely populated cities around Africa have been declared out of capacity setting a bad precedent for the highly anticipated service, which was meant to offer amazing speeds and convenience.
Accra in Ghana is down, Nigeria has 4 major cities including Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcot, Benin City and just next door in Zambia Lusaka is out of capacity too.
countries affected by Starlink sold out of capacity for those who managed to purchase the various kits, they have mostly complained of bad to pathetic speeds in most cases, only enjoying connectivity late in the night when most users would not be connected.
Speeds as low as 1mbps and great latencies have been reported across most of these cities forcing thousands to fall back again to much resilient fibre technologies
Elon Musk a few hours however tweeted that Starlink is dealing with the issue as a matter of urgency
Starlink is working to increase Internet capacity in dense urban areas in Africa as fast as possible. Please note that there is still significant capacity outside of city centers
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1853435600117932480
This move could have greatly impacted on individuals, families, and small businesses who really needed fast reliable, and convenient connectivity.
it is however not clear when this move will be made to fix the problem, with a couple of satellites being expected to be launched soon, hopefully, maybe Africa will be a priority as most efforts were going to hurricane-hit American states and war in Ukraine.
Until then the local ISPs are the best alternatives in terms of speeds and connectivity, although a lot needs to be done to redress their prizing regime, especially for IAP who are not incurring huge costs to their last miles, as they already have the bandwidth, unlimited.
Besides the technical issue facing Starlink, Zimbabwe service providers are also under serious political threat which has technically stopped them from distributing the devices citing frivolous reasons disguised as waiting for the clearance process.
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