Local reports in South Africa say that Communications Minister Solly Malatsi is poised to give a policy direction which will permit SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite system to operate in the country.

Malatsi’s move will have to be approved by the nation’s regulator Icasa and will likely to require Starlink to invest in local businesses in order to comply with South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment rules.

“I think in the next few weeks we’ll be able to communicate the outcome of the review of all those submissions and then finalise the policy direction for final decision-making by Icasa,” said Malatsi, in an interview with TechCentral.

“We are very close to finalising all those [public and commercial] responses. Remember, we got 19,000 submissions, and it is very important that we go through them all individually – even though it was clear as the team was working through the material that some were just repeat submissions. But the assessment must still be thorough,” Malatsi added.

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Categories: Articles, Broadband, Satellite

Tags: icasa, south africa, starlink