Maybe not the best optics for you ..

Last week Starlink made a move that multiple people around Africa felt the effects of, as it shut down roaming users in unsupported countries and came up with a new roaming list that still at the time of writing, does not involve a single African country, while forcing roaming users who are in the country  to switch to a locally supported plan and change to a Zimbabwean address in order to keep using their Starlink kits. It’s a move that makes business sense ,as Starlink obviously wants to stop the unnecessary logistical gymnastics that roaming kits require if local support is available just like here in Zimbabwe. But here’s the thing, a lot of African countries still aren’t officially supported by Starlink, and if you had your roaming account suspended in one of those, you have 60 days until you no longer have access to Starlink. And well , that doesn’t sit well with me, because I would argue Starlink has just followed some of their most loyal and devout customers.

The reason I say this is because as someone who literally moths ago accessed Starlink through roaming (on a friend’s kit not my own) , I gained an appreciation for just how much it takes to even gain access to a kit in an unsupported country. Until recently , we all know that the easiest way to get Starlink in Zimbabwe was to order through third party dealers and resellers that would use a roaming package linked to Zambia. And a lot of people know how terrible of a process that was considering it required paying at minimum double the price of what it costs to get a kit now, sometimes you wouldn’t even use your own account but someone else’s linked to their email (meaning they could just mess with your Starlink subscription if they want), and of course, you paid a roaming subscription that in the past two months got increased to $100 a month. Simply put it takes a lot of dedication and money to want to get a roaming kit that way, and while I can’t say the situation is the same for every unsupported African country as it was here in Zimbabwe, I can imagine it takes a lot of effort there to get a kit too. And yet some people still do it, some people are either so sick of their local internet providers (which are usually better than Econet and friends by the way) , or they just believe in what Starlink is supposed to represent (affordable, fast internet for the masses that ideally cant be controlled by any government ) that they are willing to go through all the hurdles and hassles of getting a roaming package and pay more money to use it. And Starlink basically has just cut those people off.

Countries like South Africa , Namibia, Tanzania, Ethiopia and more now likely have users in fear of what comes next as these users have two months to see if Starlink properly launches in their countries. Now for countries like Tanzania things may turn around pretty quickly as official support was planned for Q4 of 2024 (AKA the quarter we are currently in), meaning that before the year ends Tanzanian users may probably get local support and move to that. However for South Africa there still isn’t even a roadmap for support, and with the penchant for regulations issues and troubles that Starlink has started to get with African countries, it may mean that countries without are stated support roadmap right now may have to wait even longer for any chance of official Starlink support, and those who bought roaming kits in such countries seem to be stranded for now.

And to be honest, that sucks, and feels like the antithesis the of what Starlink is supposed to mean. The people trying to gain roaming access after all are the same kinds of renegades willing to jump the limits of state lines  and local infrastructure to again, get great internet at a somewhat affordable price. Some even believe in Elon Musk and Starlink’s vision of not being controlled by state regulators when it comes to internet access. And yet those are the people who right now are getting axed for issues that yes, might not completely be in Starlink’s control but definitely don’t help their need for their services. These users are in many ways first adopters who even help test the service in their respective countries and evangelise it when they tell their peers about it. They’re essentially Starlink’s greatest supporters in a lot of ways. As such the company owes them a little more grace. At the very least a longer roaming period in countries where no rollout plans exist yet. I doubt anyone who works for Starlink is reading this, but if you are, trust me you don’t want to let down the people who believe in you, especially when they’re the ones who champion your product to others.

But perhaps I’m speaking too soon, and Starlink will be able to properly support all these people in our continent before their roaming days run out. I doubt it, but one can have hope right. And if they don’t manage to do that. Well, now we all know to believe in them a little less.

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