The decision whether to award Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink an operating license in South Africa will ultimately rest with the country\u2019s industry regulator, a government minister said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Pretoria-born Musk has indicated that he wants Starlink internet services, which rely on a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, to be made available in Africa\u2019s largest economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he has refused to relinquish any equity in the business to comply with Black-empowerment rules \u2014 which he says are \u201copenly racist.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policy direction will be determined following inputs from all interested parties, \u201cbut the awarding of a license will remain in the hands\u201d of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi told the Cape Town Press Club on Tuesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere will be a lot of issues remaining that can only be worked out between the applicant and Icasa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Malatsi has championed changes to the empowerment laws for multinational satellite providers. He\u2019s proposed that instead of being required to partner with Black shareholders they should be able to qualify for operating licenses by meeting other requirements, such as investing in Black-owned businesses and related infrastructure within South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The minister is a member of the business-friendly Democratic Alliance, the second-largest party in the country\u2019s governing coalition that was set up after last year\u2019s elections failed to produce an outright winner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His proposals have met with resistance from other political parties, which argue that further action is needed to tackle racial disparities that persist more than three decades after the end of White-minority rule. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Equity-equivalent deals similar to those proposed by Malatsi have previously been offered to automotive companies such as BMW AG<\/a>, Ford Motor Co.<\/a> and Toyota Motor Corp<\/a> \u2014 they established funds that promote the advancement of Black people in the industry without partially ceding ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Starlink\u2019s technology would be a potential game-changer for South African users who\u2019ve historically faced expensive or unreliable internet options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Only 2.7% of rural households have access to the web, according to a 2024 survey compiled by the local statistics agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other rapidly growing low-Earth satellite services such as the Middle East\u2019s Space42 and China\u2019s SpaceSail project could also benefit from a change in the rules should they begin operating in South Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The decision whether to award Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink an operating license in South Africa will ultimately rest with the country\u2019s industry regulator, a government minister said. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":804569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[2662,18568],"class_list":["post-827766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-elon-musk","tag-starlink"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827768,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827766\/revisions\/827768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}