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In a clumsy, unnecessary and rather self defeating exercise, probably one of the cheapest dirty tricks in the ICT sector for the year 2024, the Zimbabwe government has finally let its grip off the IT sector allowing private players to sell and distribute Starlink devices in Zimbabwe.
While Starlink has had its own problems in Zimbabwe and other African countries selling out in most major cities due to limited bandwidth, this factor was a frustrating exercise which defeated the rent seeking politicians, who were hoping to use the “law” for first in the market advantage.
The international connectivity service which naturally has been supplied across the globe directly by Starlink saw the Zimbabwean political players having vested interest as they saw an opportunity to make millions via redistributing and overpricing the service to government departments and other players
Starlink licensing had been announced first by the president of Zimbabwe himself in May 2024, yet in an all the unprocedural announcement, it seems the major motive was only directed to propping one sole distributor, IMC , to give it exclusive rights to sell and distribute Starlink kits in Zimbabwe, according to the official announcement .
However the move which meant to give monopoly to business front, Wickneil Chivhayo was largely resisted by Starink itself instructing the government that no one can have exclusive distributorship rights over their devices, this move forced them to buckle down, reversing on the promise for sole distributorship deal, but engaged in dirty tactics, blocking any other local players to sell or distribute the devices, allowing only their chosen ones and state owned companies first into the market.
The opportunity saw the emergence of other players registering interest on the business and they approached Starlink for official distributorship license which they got .
The interested companies that were authorised by Starink are
- Aura ( Cleared by Potraz)
- TelOne (Cleared by Potraz)
- IMC (Cleared By Potraz , Starlink not certain)
- ZODSAT
- Dandemutande
- Frampol
- Dark Fibre Africa
- Zarnet
The already licenced services providers had been denied access to the Zimbabwe market as Potraz was forced to ask them for clearance first, before selling the devices to the mass market..
The process took more than 5 months as service providers were halted, warned never to sell direct until they are “cleared” a move which was meant to slow them from entering the market.
However while they waited, most devices were already sold and installed to cities and towns outside Harare and it seems most government and state controlled institutions will be targeted by “chosen Ones” with already inflated charges billed against them.
The other service providers have finally been allowed to enter the Zimbabwe mass market, but will not shake up the market as they are also entering the sold out market, waiting patiently for Starlink to build more constellations and hopefully increase bandwidth for African markets.
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