Safaricom Vs Starlink: What’s The Fuss All About?

Last week Kenyans, or at least Kenyans on Twitter, known as KoT (I still hate to call them Kenyans on X for a number of reasons), were up in arms about the contents of a letter written by Safaricom to the Communications Authority (CA) regarding regulation of a new generation of services enabled by Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellites.  The accusation of the KoT was that Safaricom were potentially stiflingly innovation to keep away competition, specifically targeting Elon Musk’s Starlink service from SpaceX, which is undoubtedly the most well-known of the emerging services enabled by LEO satellites.

Before I delve into the letter, let me first give some insights into what problem it is that SpaceX Corporation (and Elon musk) are trying to solve.  Through Elon’s vision, the primary problem that SpaceX are trying to solve is to put humans on Mars, to explore and colonise the 4^th planet from The Sun, and solving this problem for humanity itself.  Elon thinks big! It’s that simple, but in solving this problem they are tackling a number of other problems along the way. I’ll unpack 2 of those problems and just who they are solving them for.  For technology to have impact, it has to be about people, so let’s start by introducing our first character, Billy Bob.

Billy Bob is a farmer in Texas, and lives with his wife and 4 kids on his grandfather’s farm.  He wants to watch 8K resolution Netflix and enjoy fast speed internet despite living in a rural area and being very far from fibre. Starlink via its 6000 strong fleet of Generation 1 satellites have launched a service where Billy Bob can pay about $100 a month and can watch Netflix. Billy Bob is happy!  But on the opposite side of the world, Maina in Kiambu County can also now get fast but limited broadband from $9 a month. All because the same satellites that serve Billy Bob whizz around the earth so that 60 of these satellites are over Kenyan skies at the same time. Maina is happy too. This service is the Starlink broadband service to the “dishys” that has launched in Kenya about a year ago. From a techie’s point of view, we might call this new product offering “Direct to Dish LEO constellation broadband service”.

David is a KWS ranger, deployed in Mount Kenya National Park. He has many important duties to protect habitats, wildlife, and hikers in the park, but he just can’t get a signal on his mobile phone. A new type of service that will help David and many thousands of emergency response workers worldwide is being trialled by Space X, Lynk, AST Spacemobile and other companies.

These companies have each launched a small handful of satellites including the Starlink Generation 2 satellites which have proven that ordinary mobile phones, like the Samsung 4G phone that David owns, can communicate with low earth orbit satellites, back to terrestrial networks, and send messages, make phone calls and get some reasonable data speeds. This at the end of the day might help David to help the visiting hikers and their guides, the wild animals and the habitat of Mount Kenya National Park.  This technology solution is called “Direct to Device satellite mobile” but it now requires lots of regulatory and standards considerations to enable it to become a viable service that operates alongside existing mobile services.  Much study is going on via the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-R) study groups which will enable global decisions to be made in 2027 at the next World Radio Conference (WRC).

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So how does solving these problems help get humans on Mars?  Well simply put, both need lots of satellites and both of these need lots of rockets. Rockets capable of lifting heavier payloads of satellites into earth orbit, rockets capable of escaping Earth’s orbit, and taking humans to Mars, along with food and water and whatever other things they might need to sustain life on Mars, and even to return to Earth with whatever they find or create on this mysterious red planet. SpaceX’s most impressive innovation to date has been the rockets it has built and launched, thus enabling all those satellites to go into Low Earth Orbits, making Billy Bob, Maina, and in the near future making KWS Ranger John happy.

So everyone’s happy right?  Except Safaricom it seems? (if we believe the entertaining Safaricom vs Starlink articles that were circulating last week). Oh, and KoT definitely aren’t happy, because they read the entertaining articles that analysed Safaricom’s letter and they thought that Safaricom was being a bully and trying to stop Elon from putting humans on Mars and from Maina getting cheaper broadband in Kiambu.

Well first of all, I actually read the letter.  Secondly, I actually understood what the letter was about, and interpreted that it was entirely about the “Direct to Mobile” services that are under trial, and not at all about the Starlink broadband dishy services that were launched in Kenya about a year ago.  I did check in with the Safaricom officer who signed the letter and asked, “Am I correct in understanding that the letter is just about Direct to Mobile?” He replied “100 percent Ben, Direct to Dish is not a regulatory concern”.

So, with that in mind, I’ve studied and analysed the letter again and I am 100 percent in support of everything that Safaricom are asking for in the letter, and the solid reasons behind it.

So let me now unpack the contents of the letter, with my understanding of the main points, to justify why I support the Green Giant in this matter.

Introducing the subject of direct to mobile, Safaricom acknowledge that they have entered into an agreement with AST Spacemobile to try out direct to mobile services.  AST and Safaricom have a common shareholder in Vodafone group, but this initiative from Safaricom shows that they have plans to explore this new technology, to meet the critical communications needs of Ranger John.

But to make the mainstream use of this technology a reality, it is going to require decisions to be made in 2027 at that upcoming WRC.  Specifically, Safaricom point out that it is very important that Kenya participate in the Agenda item 1.13 of the ITU-R.  This is something that I fully support that Kenya, and especially its techies, tech companies and learned academics, take part in supporting GoK and the regulator the CA in these very important discussions of technical standards that take place at meetings such as the ITU and the IETF.  I wrote an earlier blog about the important work that was being done by my good friend Andrew Alston, in the development of Global ICT technical standards.

Safaricom also point out that they (along with other T1 and T2 licence holders) have very significant investment in licences but also in infrastructure to build communications networks in Kenya, hence have a vested interest in the country and therefore deserve a level playing field when it comes to licencing and regulation.  A Tier 1 licence allows an MNO to deliver services “direct to handset” but this comes at a high cost to acquire licence, spectrum and to meet obligations of coverage and service quality.  T2 licence holders have many of the same rights to roll out infrastructure as T1, but can’t sell direct to mobile services to the public.  For this reason, they advocate that foreign satellite companies should not be granted blanket licences allowing direct to mobile, without being restricted by the same cost and compliance obligations as the T1 or T2, and this really is a fair enough request.

The letter then points out potential challenges of cross border implications that could affect national security, or even interfere with the signals of MNOs in neighbouring countries.  These are some of the technical aspects that WRC 27 will surely address.  But the concern is real, imagine if a terrorist from a neighbouring country could enter Kenya, commit crimes within Kenyan soil, all while communicating on his mobile phone, up to space, being completely untraceable by Kenyan security services.  We really don’t want to see such a thing happening.

As well as causing interference problems, those blanket licences for satellite operators could also totally dis-incentivise local companies to expand into marginalised areas, and Safaricom suggest looking at the example of the FCC (telecoms regulator in USA) who have worked on a national coverage from space framework.  We have counties, especially in the North and East of the country, whose broadband coverage lags behind that of more central counties.  It would be very careless of Kenya to abandon its digital superhighway initiative and allow those marginalised counties to be fully served by foreign satellite operators.

Ben Roberts is a farmer and technology enthusiast in Kenya. He is Chairman of ICT sector board at Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA)