Why Africa’s telcos are embracing Starlink instead of fighting it

Until January 2023, when Starlink launched in Nigeria—its first African market—the continent’s telecom industry operated on a simple assumption: connectivity had to be built from the ground up.

Mobile operators have spent decades investing billions of dollars in towers, fibre networks, spectrum licences, and, more recently, data centres to connect millions of people across Africa. The farther a community was from existing infrastructure, the more expensive and difficult it became to serve.

Starlink’s arrival challenged that logic. By delivering high-speed internet directly from low-Earth orbit satellites, the company introduced a new connectivity model that bypassed many of the infrastructure constraints that have long shaped Africa’s telecom industry.

Three years later, as Starlink expands across the continent and attracts a growing subscriber base, mobile operators are being forced to rethink not only how they extend coverage but also how they compete, invest, and grow.

Starlink now operates in 27 African countries and delivers faster download speeds than most traditional fixed broadband providers, according to the latest data from Ookla’s Speedtest Intelligence, released on June 15.

In response, operators including MTN, Airtel, Orange, and Vodafone are forging partnerships with satellite companies to expand rural coverage, lower network costs, and unlock new revenue opportunities. The result is a fundamental shift in Africa’s telecom playbook.

Starlink reaches an “estimated half a million users by the end of 2025 in Africa, out of around 10 million globally, with the Americas and Asia leading,” according to the Ookla report.

Subscriber data remains scarce across Africa, as only a handful of telecom regulators publish such figures. In Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reported 91,991 Starlink subscribers in Q4 2025, making it the country’s second-largest internet service provider. Kenya’s Communications Authority reported 19,470 subscribers in September 2025, while Rwanda’s Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA) recorded 4,489 subscribers in Q2 2025.

Starlink’s rise has been driven largely by frustrations with Africa’s broadband infrastructure.

Across many African countries, consumers and businesses continue to face unreliable fibre connections, limited broadband availability, slow speeds, and restrictive data allowances. In areas where fibre does not exist, Starlink offers something that traditional providers often cannot: fast internet delivered almost anywhere.

Mukesh Chandra, former chief technology officer at Globacom and telecom infrastructure consultant, said the comparison between satellite broadband and terrestrial networks often overlooks the technical limitations that continue to favour fibre and mobile infrastructure.

Chandra explained that satellite internet cannot completely avoid delays because signals must travel between Earth and satellites before reaching users. This makes response times slower than on mobile networks. By contrast, 5G was built to reduce these delays, making activities such as video calls, gaming, and real-time applications run more smoothly.

While Starlink has shown impressive download speeds across several African markets, Chandra argued that bandwidth delivered through satellites cannot match the scale of fibre-backed mobile networks.

“Bandwidth delivered through satellite cannot be compared with bandwidth delivered through fibre. Fibre will always be superior,” he said. “Satellite communications are most effective in areas where fibre or microwave infrastructure cannot be deployed and where operators lack network coverage.”

Not a threat, a collaboration

When Starlink first entered African markets, many analysts predicted a showdown between satellite broadband and mobile operators.

That feared showdown has largely failed to materialise. The economics simply do not support it.

While Starlink’s monthly subscription fees are competitive in some markets, including Ghana and Zimbabwe, the service remains out of reach for many Africans because of the high upfront cost of equipment, which ranges from $200 to $700.

Even as the company continues to expand its footprint, reaching 27 African countries after securing a licence to operate in Côte d’Ivoire on June 17, the cost of entry remains a significant barrier to mass adoption.

The technology also suffers from practical constraints. Users need specialised hardware, indoor coverage remains weak, and Direct-to-Device services still support only limited functionality.

These realities have convinced operators that satellite internet is unlikely to replace mobile networks. Instead, it offers an opportunity to solve one of the industry’s most persistent challenges: rural connectivity.

Chandra believes this explains why operators increasingly view Starlink as a partner rather than a competitor.

“There is significant scope for satellite communications in Nigeria, particularly in offshore and remote areas where terrestrial networks struggle to reach,” he said. “But satellite services and mobile networks are designed for different purposes.”

That view is increasingly shared across the industry.

“Ultimately, we have to embrace LEO satellites; they are not going away,” MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita said during the company’s Capital Markets Day on June 11, monitored by TechCabal. “We have already started one or two partnerships, particularly in Zambia with Starlink.”

MTN began a proof-of-concept trial of Starlink’s Direct-to-Device technology in Zambia on March 7, while MTN South Africa conducted successful voice and SMS trials with satellite provider Lynk Global during the same period.

“We are embracing the technology; we are not running away from it,” Mupita said. “A person connected at home will increasingly be using a combination of these technologies.”

MTN did not respond to the request for additional comments for this story.

The same shift is playing out across the industry. In December 2025, Airtel Africa partnered with SpaceX to distribute Starlink broadband and support Direct-to-Device services across its 14 African markets.

Vodafone followed in March 2026, partnering with Amazon’s Project Kuiper to provide satellite connectivity and backhaul services across Africa. In June 2025, Orange signed a multi-year agreement with Eutelsat OneWeb to support enterprise connectivity, government services, and mobile backhaul.

Alastair Jones, Head of Investor Relations at Airtel Africa, noted that terrestrial or earth-bound, physical telecom infrastructure investments remain the company’s primary priority even as they lean into satellite ecosystems.

“We see satellite technology as complementary and likely to co-exist to enhance the customer proposition,” Jones told TechCabal in an emailed response. “As you may know, we have partnered with Starlink across our markets, reflecting the complementary nature of satellite technology to our offering.”

Why the collaboration is growing

Despite decades of telecom investment, large parts of rural Africa remain underserved. According to MTN’s digital infrastructure strategy, Africa accounts for roughly 18% of the world’s population but less than 1% of global fibre infrastructure.

That gap remains one of the continent’s largest connectivity challenges. Satellite networks offer operators a way to address this problem more quickly than traditional infrastructure rollouts.

Direct-to-Device technology represents perhaps the most significant development. Instead of requiring specialised Starlink terminals, future generations of smartphones will increasingly connect directly to satellites for messaging, emergency services, and basic data access.

While current capabilities remain limited, operators view the technology as a powerful extension of existing mobile networks.

Rather than building hundreds of towers across difficult terrain, carriers can use satellites to fill coverage gaps and improve service availability.

This dramatically changes the economics of universal coverage.

The infrastructure race is beyond towers

The Starlink effect is reshaping how African telecom operators think about infrastructure, but not in the way many initially expected. Rather than reducing the need for terrestrial networks, the rise of satellite connectivity is reinforcing the importance of fibre, towers, and spectrum.

Chandra argues that the sheer capacity advantage of terrestrial networks makes them indispensable for mass-market connectivity. A typical 5G base station can deliver about 6 Gbps of capacity across three sectors while serving hundreds of users simultaneously.

In cities such as Lagos, where operators like MTN and Globacom have deployed thousands of sites, aggregate network capacity runs into terabits per second.

“When you calculate the aggregate capacity of those networks, the scale becomes enormous,” he said. “Can satellite communications realistically deliver that level of capacity to millions of users? The answer is no. Satellite and terrestrial networks are designed for different use cases, and mobile operators will continue to play the dominant role in serving mass-market connectivity needs.”

That reality is increasingly shaping operator strategy. Rather than viewing Starlink as a substitute for mobile networks, carriers are treating satellite connectivity as another layer of the digital infrastructure stack—one that extends coverage to remote and underserved areas. At the same time, fibre, towers, data centres, and subsea cables continue to carry the vast majority of internet traffic.

At MTN, the conversation increasingly centres on integrated digital infrastructure rather than standalone connectivity assets.

The company plans to triple its fibre footprint over the next five years, double subsea cable capacity, expand data centre investments, and potentially reintegrate tower infrastructure through its proposed acquisition of IHS towers, according to Mupita.

Satellite connectivity forms part of this broader ecosystem. During Capital Markets Day, MTN executives repeatedly emphasised the importance of combining fibre, towers, subsea cables, data centres, and satellite capabilities into a single integrated platform.

The goal is to offer enterprises, governments, cloud providers, and hyperscalers end-to-end infrastructure services rather than merely selling connectivity.

In this vision, satellites become another layer of the digital infrastructure stack.

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