A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off carrying Amazon Leo internet network satellites from the Cape Canaveral in the US in April 2025. Steve Nesius/Reuters By any sensible measure, this was a race Starlink could not lose. Elon Musk’s satellite broadband service has more than 10 000 satellites in orbit and millions of customers…
Solly Malatsi, communications and digital technologies minister. Minister Solly Malatsi says he has engaged several low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers, including Starlink, for insight-sharing purposes rather discussing individual licence applications. This, amid furore over alleged lobbying of Starlink, owned by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to get an operating licence in South Africa by Democratic Alliance (DA)…
Communications minister Solly Malatsi. Image: DCDT Communications minister Solly Malatsi has hit back at parliament over the Starlink lobbying controversy, delivering a combative written rebuttal that names for the first time the facilitator of his only meeting with Elon Musk’s SpaceX – and pointedly cutting Tony Leon’s Resolve Communications out of the story. In a…
In the modern private spaceflight sector, launching rockets is no longer enough, aerospace firms increasingly need to own the payloads they carry. Rocket Lab has announced a massive $8 billion acquisition of Iridium Communications in a direct bid to secure the infrastructure needed to compete with SpaceX’s rapidly expanding Starlink network. Subject to regulatory approvals,…
Former DA leader Tony Leon Tony Leon has personally rejected allegations that the public affairs firm he chairs, Resolve Communications, used its proximity to DA leaders to lobby government ministers improperly on behalf of private clients – among them Elon Musk’s Starlink – and signalled that the firm is weighing legal action over what it…
Satellite operators wanting to launch a constellation-based service such as Starlink in South Africa cannot obtain the necessary network licence from the regulator at present, and their realistic route into the market is to acquire one from an existing licence holder, communications regulator Icasa has said. In a notice (PDF) published in the Government Gazette…
The entrance to the SpaceX rocket launch area in Brownsville, Texas. Veronica Gabriela Cardenas/Reuters SpaceX has told investors it plans to launch a Starlink mobile service for US consumers, the Financial Times reported on Friday, in a move that could allow the Elon Musk-led company to compete directly with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Here are…
Namibia’s communications regulator said on Monday, 22 June, it dismissed an appeal by Starlink against the rejection of its license applications, reaffirming that Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider failed to meet local ownership requirements. The silhouette of Elon Musk and Starlink logo are seen in this illustration taken 11 June 2026. Reuters/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo The…
Namibia’s communications regulator said on Monday it dismissed an appeal by Starlink against the rejection of its licence applications, reaffirming that Elon Musk’s satellite internet provider failed to meet local ownership requirements. The Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (Cran) rejected Starlink’s applications for a telecommunications service licence and radio spectrum access licence in March, citing…
Starlink has yet to formally apply to operate in South Africa. While it has rapidly expanded across other African nations, South African-born Elon Musk’s satellite-based internet company Starlink is still to make a formal application to operate locally. This was signalled by the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), in a written Parliamentary response…
