Nearly six in 10 South African registered voters would accept exempting US companies from black economic empowerment requirements if it brought investment and jobs, according to polling published by The Common Sense – and support is strongest among black voters. The Social Research Foundation’s (SRF’s) second-quarter 2026 market survey found 47% of voters strongly agreed…
Eutelsat said on Friday it expects revenue to increase slightly next year as growth of more than 30% in its low-Earth orbit satellite business offsets declines in its legacy video operations. The company said in a trading update it expected to deliver slight revenue growth in 2027, compared with stable revenue in the previous year….
SpaceX plans to build ground-based network infrastructure and turn Starlink into a full mobile service, president Gwynne Shotwell said on Tuesday — a shift that knocked shares in the largest US wireless carriers and puts the satellite operator on a collision course with terrestrial mobile networks. The company bought 65MHz of wireless spectrum licences from…
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…
