ibrathesheriff ~ $ cat /episodes/my-starlink-finally-arrives.md

My Starlink Finally Arrives

published: February 13, 2025
tags: the-internet | starlink | satellite-internet-constellation | hardware |
reading time: 2 minutes

by @ibrathesheriff ibrathesheriff x/twitter icon

An image the Sheriff - ibrathesheriff

Internet service providers in Zimbabwe are seriously horrible. The market is an oligopoly, meaning local providers an insane amount of the bargaining power.

Tweet about how slow Telone WIFI is

This tweet is all fact! There are providers that have such poor speeds that it’s better to grab a flash drive and cycle the data yourself to the intended recipient. I have had to deal with:

  • Poor speeds
    • Some providers have max speeds of about 1.2 Mbps.
    • Some providers are messing around in the Kbps range!
  • Dead-zones: there’s days where the service will just be down.
    • There’s a provider I once used that only gave you 15-20 days of actual uptime per month. The rest of the month I was just left chilling in the dark. Whenever I called they just kept saying, “we are working on it”.
  • Expensive
    • I did my tertiary education studies in South Africa, and had access to some good WIFI connections. They cost a fraction of what I was paying in Zimbabwe. Think, R450 vs. R4650. I mean, what the hell?
    • How I am paying so much for a bad connection?
    • Even capped packages can be expensive.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by Starlink Services LLC, an international telecommunications provider that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the well-known American aerospace company, SpaceX.

Satellite internet constellations are networks of artificial satellites that deliver internet service. The term now commonly describes the massive constellations,megaconstellations, orbiting in low Earth orbit (LEO). These LEO constellations are designed to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet access. So we can now throw away our underground cables and network towers in favour of connecting to these artificial satellite.

There are multiple players in the game like Eutelsat OneWeb but in Africa the one making the most noise continues to be Starlink.

Starlink Mini is a compact, portable kit that can easily fit in a backpack, designed to provide high-speed, low-latency internet on the go

I tried to buy one

Detail the waiting list process

Tuesday 10 December 2024 Image of Starlink box

Finally, an update

Screenshot of email from Starlink

Saturday 8 February 2025 Image of Starlink box

It arrived!

Thursday 13 February 2025 Image of Starlink box