Namibia said Monday it had rejected a request for billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate its satellite internet services in the country, dealing the company a second setback in southern Africa.<\/p>\n
Starlink had applied for the licence through its local unit, Starlink Internet Services Namibia (Pty) Limited, the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) said in a government gazette.<\/p>\n
Starlink provides high-speed internet access to remote locations around the world via thousands of low Earth orbit satellites.<\/p>\n
The regulator gave no explanation for the refusal, saying only that “the full reasons for the decision can be requested from the authority.”<\/p>\n
AFP sought comment from CRAN but had not received a response.<\/p>\n
However CRAN’s statement noted that Starlink’s local subsidiary has no local ownership.<\/p>\n
US-based Starlink, which counters criticism on its website with a “Myth vs Fact” page, says it established the Namibian company and plans to partner with local firms to create jobs and economic opportunities.<\/p>\n
Starlink has failed to secure a licence in neighbouring South Africa, where ownership rules have also blocked its entry.<\/p>\n
Telecommunications companies operating in South Africa, including those with foreign investment, are currently required to provide 30 percent equity to historically disadvantaged groups — a policy created to mitigate the legacy of racial inequality left by apartheid.<\/p>\n
South Africa-born Musk has refused ceding ownership, calling the black empowerment policy “openly racist”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Namibia said Monday it had rejected a request for billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate its satellite internet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-344376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}