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Botswana has granted an operating license to Starlink, becoming the latest African nation to allow the Internet services company to operate after it threatened to restrict services where it’s unlicensed. The decision to grant the permit was taken after the country’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi met Starlink executives in Dallas.
Regulators in the southern African nation were asked to fast-track approval of the license, President Mokgweetsi Masisi said in remarks posted on his office’s official Facebook page. The decision to grant the permit was taken after Masisi recently met Starlink executives in Dallas, he said.
“I gave them two weeks to fast-track this and they have already been given a license,” Masisi said.
Starlink has been under pressure to cease operations in several countries where it was operating illegally and last week, Zimbabwe announced it’s granted an operating license to Starlink. The company, which services more than 2.6 million customers globally, delivers broadband internet beamed down from a network of about 5,500 satellites that SpaceX began deploying in 2019.
Masisi said Starlink services are expected to become available in the country soon, helping farmers and others in remote areas connect when conventional fixed broadband is unavailable.
A spokesperson for the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority declined to comment at the time of publication.
Despite the lack of an operating license in the country, some internet users and service providers have publicly revealed their usage of Starlink’s services in Botswana using roaming kits.
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