By Ollus Ndomu
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk announced Tuesday that his company’s Starlink satellite broadband service will be launched in Zambia in no time, following a Monday meeting between his representatives and President Hichilema Hakainde in New York on the sidelines of the just ended United Nations General Assembly.
Confirming the development, President Hichilema’s Assistant Jito Kayumba tweeted saying:
“Our president’s engagement with the team from SpaceX and their Starlink initiative will escalate Zambia’s position in the digital economy and enable universal access to internet and other technologies. Grateful for this initiative from visionary entrepreneur Elon Musk.”
In a tweet now gone viral in Zambian social media spaces, Musk reacted to Kayumba’s tweet, stating: “Looking forward to providing Starlink service to the people of Zambia!”
During the meeting with Starlink Head, Chad Gibbs, along side other company officials, Hichilema said he intended to “quickly sort out Zambia’s connectivity issues as this is the only way we can truly have a functional e-government of the 21st century.”
Zambia joins Nigeria and Mozambique on the list of countries to receive Starlink internet services in Africa.
Musk’s SpaceX aims to rapidly expand Starlink as its race with rival satellite communications companies including OneWeb and Amazon.com, gains significant momentum on the tapestry of technology.
Since 2019, SpaceX has been able to launch atleast 3,000 Starlink satellites while its number of subscribers in the United States swelled.
Many of Starlink’s subscribers pay atleast US$110 a month for broadband internet using US$599 worth of self-install terminal kits.
According to Musk’s ambitious plan, Starlink is working to deploy 12,000 satellites at a cost of US$10 billion but questions remain over the high-speed internet’s affordability in Africa, although its vitality outworks the cheaply accessed fibre internet connectivity which is quite limited.
