Hi there Mr. Malatsi,

Hope you are well.

I’d like to first appreciate your willingness to bring Starlink to South Africa.

I would like to further the understanding of why SpaceX’s and Elon Musk’s Starlink is so important to South Africa as a whole by highlighting the reasons.

1. Community: Starlink can help bring many more communities to the internet.
2. Education: Education is of great importance to the development of children and adults alike. By bringing Starlink to the masses in South Africa, means helping South Africa produce best in class education.
3. People with physical disabilities: Starlink’s connectivity is important for people with physical, and mental, disabilities. This one is close to me as I am physically disabled. Unfortunately some have such disabilities at such high levels, to the point which they rely on internet to keep busy.
4. Business: As you may know, businesses require internet connectivity to operate and communicate on a daily basis. Starlink’s LEO connectivity has powered many businesses in farms and isolated areas around the globe and can help push businesses to set up in all parts of South Africa.
5. Reliability: I’m currently with a service provider that unfortunately goes down a lot of the time due to hub issues. This downtime can last as long as 48-72 hours in some cases.
6. Affordability: As you have seen in a lot of countries, Starlink has gained popularity and created competition due to its incredible speed, its uptime, and the pricing. If we see South Africa get Starlink in, we could see more options under brands like Vodacom, MTN, etc.
7. Fibre restrictions: Last point to add is that Fibre may be reliable and fast, but there are times where the cables are hit, they break, or don’t get maintained. There are issues like service locations and streets not on the map and not being thought of. SpaceX’s Starlink can be that great alternative and solves that issue.

There are many more points that are great, but I think those are what could push South Africa as a country, closer together and be more unified. Not only that, a more connected South Africa. One that can be seen going forward as a nation for growth in the African continent.

On a note: a way for there to be the local side, a distribution centre or even call centre can be set up. There are also other way like manufacturing or Starlink partnering with companies like Courier Guy or other local companies of delivering or support.

If you would like to contact me, my line is always open and I can help with more reasons why or even if you just want a point of view from someone who has a physical disability and requires internet connection all day.

Kindest regards,

Jason Smith