Despite the company’s warnings last month that it will shut down its satellite internet by May 1 in locations where it has a license to operate, Elon Musk’s Starlink service is still in operation in a number of unapproved regions.
Customers in a number of African nations, including South Africa, received emails from SpaceX’s Starlink last month alerting them to the impending restriction on roaming in areas where the service was prohibited.
Adam Mohamed, a resident of El-Fasher in the war-torn Sudan, was able to respond to questions in an interview on Wednesday even though he had vowed to restrict access. He continued, “I’m speaking with you right now via Starlink; it’s the only means of communication for people, especially those who fled the war.”
Starlink’s alerts followed a March Bloomberg News investigation that first exposed the extent to which Musk’s satellites are being utilized in nations where it is against the law to operate, especially in areas controlled by hostile governments. The kits’ ease of smuggling and Starlink’s sheer availability on the black market aroused concerns about the company’s control over a system with broad implications for national security and hinted that misuse of the technology was a widespread issue worldwide.
Starlink warned accountholders via email that “if you are operating your Starlink kit in an area other than areas designated as — available — on the Starlink availability map, we would like to remind you that this is in violation of the Starlink terms and starting 30 April 2024, you will be unable to connect to the internet,” in response to the investigation and a similar report that appeared in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks later. These correspondence were seen by Bloomberg and were first reported by the Journal.
Emails addressed to customers in South Africa and Botswana have been examined by Bloomberg, in response to prior claims indicating that individuals in Sudan will also be impacted.
However, 73% of South African Starlink users polled online said that they could still use the service after the deadline. While some Starlink customers in Sudan who Bloomberg spoke with claimed their connection had been disconnected, others stated they were still able to access the internet unhindered.
According to Manuel Ntumba, a New York-based expert on Africa’s governance, risk, and geospatial issues, “Starlink can deploy virtual barriers to prevent unauthorised users from connecting to its network in restricted areas.” Nevertheless, he stated, “cooperation with regulatory bodies is required for the successful implementation of these measures.”
An email requesting comment was not immediately answered by Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX. Neither did a representative of the Sudanese military or the regulator of telecommunications in South Africa.
The company stated in user emails that its roaming services are not meant for long-term usage in an unlicensed area, but rather for “temporary travel and transit.” For more over two months, it instructed users who accessed the terminals in a different jurisdiction to “change your account country or return to the country in which your service was ordered”, at risk of having their service restricted.
