Now courtesy of the video from Three Men on a Boat (3-mob) above, you can watch the announcement in full, where Mpando announces that Dandemutande will be offering Starlink as part of their services in the coming year through the aforementioned partnership deal. Now does that mean that Starlink is now licensed to operate in Zim? Probably not. It’s more likely it will be operating under Dandemutande’s license as one of their products, allowing the service to operate here, but maybe under certain agreements or restrictions that work in-line with Dandemutande’s own policies. As for pricing and service, well that will depend too. After all, Dandemutande will be an authorised reseller of Starlink, meaning they can likely mark up the price to a certain extent, but hopefully one that’s still in acceptable limits, especially with the Starlink black market prices being as crazy as up to $1500. Hopefully Dande will at most play around $700 or so for the purchase and installation, giving them a healthy markup price but not making everyone decide it’s better to not have Starlink at all.

And that’s without counting another question many may have – how Dandemutande was able to get this deal. We’ve contacted them but have yet to gain a reply. Perhaps multiple network providers could have sought out the same deal but Dande got there first. And one wonders if Starlink are gaining anything more than just entry into Zimbabwe, chances are they don’t want anything more than just the ability to operate here, which is part of owner Elon Musk’s vision to create an easier, more accessible internet for everyone. The most interesting part of this though is likely that since Starlink will be offered as a Dandemutande service, it offers POTRAZ and likely in extension, our government , a level of regulation and control that wouldn’t have existed if we were all allowed to just purchase and order Starlink directly. How far this control and regulation can go though is also a mystery at the moment, but I’m sure that will be revealed with time. It also comes back to pricing when one considers that is Dandemutande will be regulated and taxed for this, how much will even the monthly subscription for Starlink cost, especially when Dande has to factor in all those costs and taxing, or do the taxes not change if Starlink is just another Dande Service.

There’s definitely more questions than answers here, and we will put in the effort to get all the information we can about this deal. However we hope it’s a net positive, with hopefully the Starlink black market coming to a close. Because Zim has had too many internet black markets this year.

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