Starlink, Usage Gap, Space Sovereignty: How Africa Can Take Back Control of Its Connectivity
Preliminary note. The views expressed here are personal and do not represent the ARTP or the Government of Senegal. The figures cited refer to the numbered sources at the end of the document.
87% of Africans live in an area covered by mobile broadband, yet barely more than a quarter of the population actually uses the Internet. How do you explain the fact that such substantial investments have been made in expanding coverage, while the issue of effective and meaningful Internet use has received far less attention?
Coverage has been funded because it is the only thing the system knows how to buy. A mobile licence comes with quantified coverage obligations (population percentage, list of localities, timetable); a universal service fund finances towers; and a regulator measures square kilometres covered and the resulting quality of service. All of this can be audited, sanctioned and celebrated at an inauguration. Usage, by contrast, depends on four variables that fall almost entirely outside the remit of the telecom regulator: the price of the device, household income, electricity and skills. None of these variables appears in an operator’s terms and conditions.
Senegalese data show this with unusual precision. The 2024 national ENTICS survey (ANSD-ARTP) indicates that 52.6% of individuals used the Internet in the previous 30 days, with a gap between Dakar, at 83.8%, and rural areas, at 33.6%. Only 19.4% of households have a home Internet subscription (43.8% in Dakar, 2.9% in rural areas). Most importantly, when unconnected households are asked why they are not connected, 65.6% cite the price of the subscription, 27.4% the lack of a device, 18.7% the lack of electricity, and only 9.7% a network coverage problem [1]. In other words, nine out of ten unconnected households face barriers that building more mobile masts will not solve.
Across the continent, the ITU reaches the same conclusion: 38% of Africa’s population used the Internet in 2024, 57% in urban areas compared with 23% in rural areas, while mobile broadband coverage stands at 86% and 4G coverage at 71%. A 2 GB mobile data basket still costs 4.2% of gross national income per capita, more than twice the 2% target set by the Broadband Commission [2][3]. The GSMA quantifies the other bottleneck: an entry-level smartphone represents 16% of average monthly income in low- and middle-income countries, and 48% for the poorest 20% [4]. In sub-Saharan Africa, the usage gap (people covered but not connected) is around 60%, compared with a coverage gap of 15% in 2022 [5].
The second factor is institutional. African universal service funds were designed to subsidise supply. In Senegal, the FDSUT is funded by a contribution equivalent to 0.5% of operators’ turnover, and its historical purpose remains infrastructure.
The third factor is accounting. Coverage is an asset on the balance sheet of a listed operator, with measurable returns in traffic and ARPU. A digital literacy programme or smartphone-financing scheme is an expense whose benefits are spread among the state, platforms and fintech companies. No single stakeholder has enough direct incentive to bear the cost alone.
My main takeaway for public policy is this: the indicator determines where the money goes. As long as regulators and donors measure the percentage of the population covered, the money will go to mobile towers. Africa has begun to shift the focus: the common African proposals adopted in Abidjan in August 2025 for WTDC-25 add device affordability to Resolution 23 and demand-side barriers (price, skills and security) to Resolution 37, for which Senegal is co-lead [7]. The next step is to redirect part of universal service funds towards demand (financing $30 devices, reducing taxes on smartphones, and training) and to publish an annual national usage survey such as ENTICS, the only instrument capable of making usage as visible as coverage.
Low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations operate with very limited ground infrastructure. The report describes them as “offshore” telecommunications operators that partly escape traditional regulatory frameworks, particularly with regard to licensing, data localisation and taxation. When operators have little or no physical presence in a country, what real levers do African governments have to regulate them?
The phrase “no physical presence” is misleading. A LEO operator has at least three tangible points of contact with a territory: the spectrum it transmits over that territory, the user terminals installed on rooftops, and the customer who pays in local currency. Each is a legal lever, provided it is activated before authorisation is granted, not afterwards.
The first lever is spectrum. Starlink terminals are radio stations transmitting in the Ku, Ka and E bands from national territory; their operation requires frequency authorisation and type approval by the regulator. This lever can be used to prohibit activation of kits purchased abroad (Nigeria has done so: a kit acquired outside the country does not work there, and a kit purchased in one locality is active only in that locality) and to require geofencing and strict subscriber identification [9]. Kenya has added a separate landing-rights authorisation ($25,000) for any company transmitting a signal into its territory [10].
The second lever is a local entity. No state is obliged to accept a contract with a company based in California. Starlink Senegal is a subsidiary incorporated under Senegalese law, holds the authorisation and is responsible for billing; it is therefore subject to VAT, corporate income tax, customs duties on kits and sector-specific contributions. It is also the legal entity that can be summoned, sanctioned and served with judicial requests. The regulator makes a favourable opinion conditional on the submission of a business plan and financial guarantees and, technically, on the installation of an international gateway, a control centre and a billing system on national territory. The authorisation is issued on the basis of a set of licence conditions.
The third lever is the gateway, and it works more in the state’s favour than is often assumed. A LEO constellation has a commercial interest in installing ground stations close to its customers: in Nairobi, the opening of a Starlink point of presence in January 2025 reduced latency from 120–150 ms to 26–30 ms [12]. A local gateway is therefore not a sacrifice imposed on the operator; it is a negotiation through which the state can obtain, in return, hosting in a national data centre, a connection to the Internet exchange point (IXP), and local retention of traffic and billing logs. The report “Telecoms Offshored” is right to make this a flagship measure.
The fourth lever is financial. Benchmarks show that most countries have incorporated Starlink into their existing tax regimes rather than inventing an entry fee: 3.5% of turnover plus a universal service fund contribution in Zimbabwe; 1% of turnover and a $50,000 initial fee in Rwanda; a 15-year licence costing $115,331 and 0.4% of turnover in Kenya, following an almost tenfold increase in 2025; and a network of three authorised distributors in Niger [9][10]. Nigeria illustrates what is at stake: by the end of 2025, Starlink had become the country’s second-largest ISP, with nearly 92,000 subscribers, behind Spectranet [13]. At this rate, an operator not subject to the same levies as its terrestrial competitors erodes the tax base and the value of existing and future licences.
The fifth lever is market access itself, and it is the most powerful if exercised before signing. South Africa has used this lever for years by making licences conditional on the rule that 30% of equity be held by historically disadvantaged people, and SpaceX committed 2.5 billion rand, including 500 million rand to connect 5,000 schools [14]. The compromise can be debated, but not the mechanism: the lever produced a quantified contribution because it was exercised before the licence was granted.
Two honest limitations. First, enforcement against the grey market (roaming kits and unauthorised resale) remains costly and imperfect. Second, the balance of power: a country of 18 million people (Senegal) has little weight on its own against a company valued at hundreds of billions of dollars. This is the strongest argument for a common regional position.
Europe has chosen to strengthen its own satellite capabilities through the IRIS² and Eutelsat programmes. The report argues that, in the medium term, Africa will also need to develop its own satellite infrastructure. In your view, how can the continent strengthen its sovereignty in space?
We should first look at the price Europe is paying. IRIS² was contracted in December 2024 for 290 satellites at €10.55 billion, then expanded to 348 satellites and more than €15.6 billion, including €11.6 billion in public funds, with services being phased in from 2029 [16]. To fulfil its role in OneWeb and IRIS², Eutelsat had to raise €1.5 billion at the end of 2025; the French state contributed €749 million and became the largest shareholder, with 29.65% [17]. A sovereign constellation is a €15 billion project backed by a high-income bloc of 450 million people. No African national budget, nor even the African Union, can replicate this model in the medium term.
African space sovereignty must therefore be defined differently: not as owning the constellation, but as controlling the factors that determine value and dependency. Four areas of work are within the continent’s reach.
The first is the ground segment. Gateways, teleports, data centres and Internet exchange points: these determine latency, data localisation, skilled employment, and a state’s ability to switch a service off or keep it running. A satellite in orbit cannot be regulated in the same way; a gateway in Diamniadio or Nairobi can. Requiring and hosting these gateways in infrastructure owned or co-owned by African stakeholders is worth more than a symbolic satellite.
The second is pooled capacity purchasing and supplier diversification. The risk is not Starlink itself, but dependence on a single supplier. Starlink, OneWeb/Eutelsat, Kuiper and Chinese constellations are all seeking markets; in April 2026, Algeria opened a tender for two NGSO licences rather than granting a single exclusive route [18]. The African Space Agency could become the continent’s anchor buyer: a continent-wide framework contract for capacity for schools, health centres and public administrations would carry more negotiating weight than 54 national contracts and would make it possible to impose service-continuity and no-unilateral-disconnection clauses.
The third is spectrum. Orbits and frequencies are allocated at the ITU, and Africa rarely arrives as a unified bloc. The common African proposals for WTDC-25 include a new initiative on “harmonised frameworks for the adoption of space technologies”, led by Senegal, Mauritius and South Africa, including spectrum coordination [7]. This is the right scale: a unified African position at WRC-27 on the Ku/Ka bands and on sharing conditions with terrestrial services would be an act of sovereignty requiring nothing more than coordination.
The fourth is skills, built up in realistic stages. Senegal launched GaindéSAT-1A on 16 August 2024, a nanosatellite designed by Senegalese engineers with the University Space Centre of Montpellier to collect hydrological and meteorological data [20]. This is not a constellation, but it is the beginning of an industry: training, a control station and data processing. Expanding these programmes, sharing ground stations between neighbouring countries and negotiating training clauses into every LEO authorisation can build, over ten years, capabilities that buying an off-the-shelf satellite never will.
Finally, Europe itself could be a partner. IRIS² and OneWeb need gateways in Africa and anchor customers; Africa needs a credible second supplier and capacity for public services. An Africa–Europe agreement whereby gateways are hosted in exchange for reserved capacity and skills transfers would be a stronger form of shared sovereignty than today’s dependency.
The report “Telecoms Offshored” proposes several measures: treating satellite service providers as full-fledged telecommunications operators, requiring local gateways, harmonising licensing regimes regionally, and making market access conditional on technology transfers. Which of these measures should be the absolute priority, in your view?
First: recognise satellite providers as full-fledged telecommunications operators, subject to the same obligations as terrestrial operators. It is not the most spectacular measure, but the other three depend on it.
A local gateway can only be required if it is included in licence conditions, which exist only if the operator is licensed as such. Regional harmonisation presupposes that each country first has a clear regime to harmonise; legal vacuums cannot be made to converge. Technology transfer, meanwhile, must be negotiated from a position of strength—that is, before the licence is granted—and is valuable only when backed by enforceable obligations. Operator status is the foundation on which the other building blocks rest.
In practical terms, regulatory parity, or equal treatment, covers six things: a locally incorporated entity holding the licence; payment of licence and spectrum fees; contributions to the universal service fund at the same rate as national operators (0.5% of turnover in Senegal); subscriber identification and compliance with judicial requests; quality-of-service and reporting obligations; and terminal type approval. This is the approach formalised by the GSMA in June 2026 in its “Satellite Playbook” for African regulators. Its central principle is regulatory parity and a distinction between landing rights (authorisation of the system) and a ground-segment licence (the provision of retail services) [21].
Two clarifications are needed to ensure that parity does not become a pretext. First, parity does not mean punishment. Kenya increased its satellite licence fees almost tenfold in 2025 [10]; Zimbabwe initially demanded $1.1 million before reaching a compromise [9]. If charges exceed those paid by terrestrial operators, the risk is delaying the arrival of a service needed in rural areas and creating a grey market. The benchmark is simple: no more and no less than what a domestic ISP pays for the same services. Second, parity must include a right to review: licence conditions should provide for reassessment after 12 to 24 months, based on the actual measured impact on ARPU and domestic operators’ market shares, rather than freezing conditions negotiated blindly.
My proposed ranking is therefore as follows. First, immediately establish full-fledged operator status, since each country can do this on its own. Second, require a local gateway as a condition of that status, negotiating it in terms of latency and hosting. Third, pursue regional harmonisation through ECOWAS and the ATU, with a modest and achievable objective: mutual recognition of type approvals, a general licence for user terminals, and a cost-oriented fee schedule [15]. Technology transfer comes last, not because it is useless, but because SpaceX does not give up equity or intellectual property. What can realistically be secured are jobs, authorised distributors, support centres and training quotas for local technicians—and these are the commitments that should be written into licence conditions.
Sources:
[1] ANSD-ARTP, ENTICS 2024, volet ménages et individus (rapport semi-final, 2025) — usage Internet 30 jours 52,6 % ; abonnement domicile 19,4 %
[2] UIT, State of digital development and trends in the Africa region (avril 2025) — 38 % d’usage, 57 %/23 % urbain-rural, couverture 86 %, panier 2 Go à 4,2 % du RNB : https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/ind/D-IND-SDDT_AFR-2025-PDF-E.pdf
[3] UIT, Facts and Figures 2025 – Internet use et Affordability — 36 % d’usage en Afrique en 2025 ; cible 2 % de la Commission Le large bande : https://www.itu.int/itu-d/reports/statistics/2025/10/15/ff25-internet-use/
[4] GSMA, State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2025 (communiqué) — écart d’usage 3,1 milliards ; terminal 16 %/48 % du revenu mensuel : https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/gsma-calls-for-renewed-focus-on-closing-the-usage-gap-as-more-than-3-billion-people-remain-offline-despite-available-mobile-internet-services/
[5] GSMA, Despite improvements, Sub-Saharan Africa has the widest usage and coverage gaps worldwide (2023) — écart de couverture 15 %, écart d’usage 59 % : https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/connectivity-for-good/mobile-for-development/blog/despite-improvements-sub-saharan-africa-has-the-widest-usage-and-coverage-gaps-worldwide/
[6] GSMA, Universal service funds in Africa: policy reforms to enhance effectiveness (octobre 2023) — 1,5 Md$ collectés 2018-2022, plus de la moitié non dépensée : https://www.gsma.com/about-us/regions/sub-saharan-africa/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/USF-Africa.pdf
[7] UAT, 3e réunion préparatoire africaine à la CMDT-25, Abidjan, 25-27 août 2025 (propositions communes africaines) — MOD 23, MOD 37, nouveau projet « cadres harmonisés pour les technologies spatiales » : https://atuuat.africa
[9] Space in Africa, Kenya’s new regulatory measures (janvier 2025) — Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Nigeria, Niger, Sierra Leone : https://spaceinafrica.com/2025/01/08/kenyas-new-regulatory-measures-target-starlink-and-other-satellite-isps-with-increased-licence-fees/
[10] ITWeb Africa, Kenya’s new licence fees shake up satellite industry (avril 2026) — licence 15 ans 115 000 $, 0,4 % du CA, droits d’atterrissage 25 000 $ : https://itweb.africa/article/kenyas-new-license-fees-shake-up-satellite-industry/RgeVDvPReOPMKJN3
[11] RTS, L’ARTP clarifie le cadre d’autorisation de Starlink au Sénégal (5 février 2026) : https://www.rts.sn/actualite/detail/a-la-une/lartp-clarifie-le-cadre-dautorisation-de-starlink-au-senegal
[12] Techweez, Starlink cuts latency by over 80 % in Kenya after Nairobi station launch (juillet 2025) : https://techweez.com/2025/07/21/starlink-nairobi-point-of-prescence-latency/
[13] Nairametrics, Top 10 internet service providers in Nigeria as of Q4 2025 (données NCC, juin 2026) — Starlink 91 991 abonnés, Spectranet 108 525 : https://nairametrics.com/2026/06/07/top-10-internet-service-providers-in-nigeria-as-of-q4-2025/
