Angola remains mired in the licensing phase for Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, with regulators yet to approve commercial operations as of June this year — an impasse now stretching beyond three years that stands in sharp contrast to the speed at which the company has expanded across Africa, where it is already active in 27 markets.
Starlink’s entry into Angola has been repeatedly postponed. Initially expected in the second quarter of 2023, the launch was pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2024, then to 2025, and to date no official start date has been confirmed. In 2023, Telecommunications Minister Mário Oliveira told SpaceX executives in meetings that negotiations were in their “final phase” and that the company had “understood the country’s operating and licensing model” — statements that, more than two years on, have yet to produce a definitive approval from Angola’s communications regulator, the Instituto Angolano das Comunicações (INACOM).
Consumer demand for the service is nonetheless tangible: Starlink has already accepted pre-registrations in Angola at a cost of 7,440 kwanzas (approximately nine dollars), signalling advance interest from users willing to pay for an alternative to traditional operators.
Angola is not alone in its hesitation within the region. Namibia recently rejected a licence application from Starlink’s local subsidiary on the grounds that it did not meet a requirement for local shareholder participation — the same regulation that had previously delayed the company’s entry into South Africa, where Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws require that 30% of telecommunications operators be held by historically disadvantaged owners. These requirements have been among the principal friction points between Starlink and several African regulators, including Angola’s.
By contrast, Eutelsat OneWeb, Starlink’s direct competitor in the low-earth orbit broadband satellite segment, secured a 15-year operating licence in Angola in July 2025, paving the way for its expansion in the country through a model that differs from Starlink’s approach: rather than selling directly to end consumers, OneWeb operates in collaboration with entities that already hold local licences, sidestepping much of the regulatory complexity that has stalled its rival.
An analysis published in July by South African newspaper the Mail & Guardian argued that Angola’s cautious response to Starlink reflects a structural dilemma that extends well beyond competition between service providers: Musk’s company challenges the very foundations of traditional telecommunications regulation. Unlike conventional operators, Starlink requires no extensive in-country infrastructure — its satellites orbit above national jurisdiction while operational control is exercised from abroad.
An INACOM official familiar with the licensing discussions confirmed that “satellite services will have to align with national licensing frameworks”, adding that the regulator is “assessing how to integrate low-earth orbit [LEO] providers within existing regulatory systems”. A representative of one of Angola’s major telecoms operators warned that “there must be a level playing field between satellite and terrestrial operators”, stressing that “an unregulated entry could distort long-term infrastructure investment” — a concern shared by traditional carriers such as Unitel, Movicel and Africell, which have committed substantial capital to physical networks across Angolan territory.
According to the same analysis, several fundamental questions remain unresolved: how to apply taxation to services delivered from orbit when the infrastructure exists outside Angola’s territorial jurisdiction; what compliance mechanisms can be established when operational control resides in a corporate headquarters thousands of kilometres away; and to what extent data flows from Angolan citizens and businesses, now routed through foreign satellites, escape state oversight and control.
Despite the slow pace of the process, Starlink’s potential impact on Angola is considerable. The country has vast stretches of rural and remote territory where coverage from traditional terrestrial networks remains limited or non-existent — precisely the environment where low-earth orbit satellite technology tends to have the greatest effect, bypassing the need to build costly physical infrastructure to the most isolated communities.
In several neighbouring countries where Starlink is already operational, the service has been linked to meaningful gains in distance education, access to remote healthcare and support for natural disaster response — the last of these being one of the arguments used by regulators in other African countries, such as Niger, to justify granting the company a licence. In African markets where it is already active, uptake has been significant: Nigeria, for example, surpassed 59,000 subscriptions in the first quarter of 2025 alone.
At the same time, experience in other markets shows that the benefits are neither automatic nor without risk. The cost of the service — in some African markets, the basic package runs to approximately $400 in equipment plus monthly fees of between $50 and $60 — makes it, for now, more accessible to higher-income economic groups than to the most vulnerable segments of the population, which are precisely those that would benefit most from coverage in remote areas. Legitimate questions persist, mirroring those identified by Angolan regulators, over the capacity to levy taxes, protect data and ensure fair competition with traditional operators that continue to employ thousands of Angolans and pay taxes to the state.
Angola’s response to Starlink has therefore been shaped by pragmatism: a careful balance between openness to technological innovation and the instinct to preserve regulatory sovereignty over a sector that is strategically important to the country’s digital economy. Neither an outright rejection nor uncritical adoption, the negotiating process — three years after it began — remains unresolved, leaving Angola among the few countries in the region still without legal access to one of the most discussed connectivity services of the moment.
Source: Mercado / Original article: https://mercado.co.ao/starlink-continua-em-fase-de-licenciamento-em-angola-num-impasse-que-dura-ha-tres-anos/
