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Low Earth Orbit (LEO) service provider Starlink is yet to pay its licence fees to operate in Zimbabwe, TechnoMag can exclusively reveal.
Responding to questions by TechnoMag, Starlink stated that they are yet to make the requisite payments for operation, hence the current delay in launching the service in ZImbabwe.
“We have applied for network licence and application licence at a cost of $1 .1 million USD, this excludes spectrum fees as part of the bundle…,said Starlink.
Starlink stated that once the payment is settled they would be good to go and operationalize in Zimbabwe as all other sticking issues have been ironed out.
Starlink did not however state when they would be paying the full license fees required, neither did they comment on whether or not the fees were profitable for their operations in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe Spectrum fee has two components which is the Access fees, a once off payment for the tenure of a licence and the annual user fees, which is paid annually.
The $1.1 million licence fee is over a 20-year tenure yet the service provider will have annual fees and USF payments of their profits deducted too.
In a recent update, Starlink had moved their official launch to next year for Zimbabwe but updated it to the next quarter, confirming a commitment to the payment.
Zimbabwe government had made noise about authorising Starlink into the country on the 25th of May, and 2 Months down the line, it seems the negotiations are far from closing as the parties keep engaging.
In a post via his social media platform, Elon Musk seemed surprised by the news that the government had authorised the operations in ZImbabwe, he only tweeted YAaay!
https://x.com/marionawfal/status/1794425348991381512?s=48
Zimbabwe will be the 11th African country to licence Starlink if this is done by the next quarter
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