Elon Musk's Starlink Government officials have announced that internet services in Zimbabwe will be suspended until license approval is received from the country's telecommunications regulator.
Zimbabwe's Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has asked Starlink to disconnect all kits operating illegally in the southern African country, according to the agency's director-general, Gift Machenguete.
“It is 100% true that we asked them to disable the connection until it is connected regularly,” he said by phone from Harare on Friday. “This is illegal. How can we allow people to broadcast before we have a license?”
Starlink notified users in Zimbabwe on Friday that regulators had directed them to “disable their services.”
Machenguete said he met with Musk on Thursday and asked Starlink's parent company SpaceX to first submit a formal application to provide services in Zimbabwe.
“It was a very cordial meeting and he understood what we were doing,” Machenguete said. “Once you submit it, I don’t think it will take that long.”
In Zimbabwe, trade in Starlink kits is rapidly increasing, especially in the informal market. Traders used social media platforms to promote sales, with one kit sometimes fetching as much as R23,500. Earlier this year, Portlaoise cracked down on the illegal use of Starlink, with police arresting citizens found using it.
Read: Zimbabwe threatens to arrest Starlink users
StarLink, which serves more than 2.6 million customers worldwide, provides broadband internet from a network of approximately 5,500 satellites that SpaceX began deploying in 2019. Zimbabwe is one of several African countries, including neighboring South Africa, that has not obtained a license for this service. . — Godfrey Malawanyika and Ray Ndlovu, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP