MTN Group CEO Ralph Mupita says the company will welcome competition from Starlink and other satellite internet providers — so long as they comply with SA law.
Mupita also welcomed the concept of a secondary spectrum market, in which spectrum could be traded like any other commodity, saying the high cost of licensing forced the local telecom giant to pass on costs to consumers.
His comments come a month after President Cyril Ramaphosa met SA-born Starlink, SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk, and in the context of a debate about foreign multinationals and compliance with broad-based BEE requirements.
“Some call it bromance, so it’s a whole process of rekindling his affection and connection with SA,” Ramaphosa told the SABC, adding that they discussed investments in automotive and telecommunications.
However, speaking at the Kgalema Motlanthe Foundation’s annual inclusive growth summit in the Drakensberg on Saturday, Mupita laid out the risks associated with proceeding to license satellite internet providers without “thoughtfulness”, raising concerns that proceeding without care could impair huge infrastructure investments the likes of MTN have made in its markets, as well as make SA’s telecommunications infrastructure vulnerable to geopolitical and geotechnical tensions.
Mupita’s comments reflect a similar row taking place in India, in which established cellphone network operators Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel are lobbying for Starlink to comply with the same licensing rules. Speaking to the Financial Times, Ambit Capital technology lead Vivekanand Subbaraman said they “want these companies to be subject to the same licensing and spectrum norms”.
Hitting back against this notion on X, Musk was quoted by the Financial Times as saying this was “unprecedented, as this spectrum was long designated by the [International Telecommunication Union] as shared spectrum for satellites”.
Mupita said SA internet providers were already investing in satellite technology. “It’s not like we’re just sitting here.”
No panacea
He said foreign satellite internet providers did not present a panacea to digital exclusion in SA, adding that 75% of adult South Africans already had access to the internet. Starlink “will not solve rural connectivity” due to capacity and data quality constraints associated with satellite networks and not applicable to fibre and cellphone networks, he said.
A simpler solution was to reduce the licensing costs and attach the concessions to 4G rollout targets in rural and underserved areas. He said a further approach to digital exclusion would be to zero-rate devices for schools and universities.
Mupita warned that “a lot of our technology is Chinese but space technology is American, and these geopolitical issues, in which the West is banning Chinese technology from its networks, is a risk ... The Europeans say the Chinese are listening in through their technology and the US is using export controls. The government needs to understand these geopolitical and geotechnical issues. We need to be thoughtful and deliberate in our approach.”
Mupita said Starlink should comply with the Electronic Communications Act, should “have an office here” and “pay tax”. He pushed back against the concept of a motor industry-style “equity equivalent” programme to absolve Starlink of broad-based BEE licensing requirements.
“They should be subject to the same processes as everyone else,” he said.
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