Thoughts on Starlink in Zimbabwe: A Suprisingly Low Bar Zimbabwean ISPs Have Failed To Clear

After much waiting and drama featuring shady deals and arrests, Starlink is officially operational in Zimbabwe and it seems to be a big hit. It took a bit to get it up and running but despite it not being particularly fast, mostly due to Harare’s congestion, it’s actually usable, an incredibly low bar that local ISPs have failed to meet. I hope this make local ISPs more competitive and spur them to improve service because it seems like there was a lot of unmet demand in high density area’s that they didn’t meet.

Procrastination Disguised as Caution—Waiting for an Official Green Light

Until now, people have been using Starlink through the roaming packages obtained from neigbouring countries. At work, we’ve been cursed with expensive, shit internet and I was told to get Starlink ASAP. Despite the president saying it’s “approved”, I was still unsure as to whether it’s legal to use and refused to set it up even though we could.

After a month of Liquid Home’s unusable LTE, I placed the $9 deposit and waited, though not for long, unlike Tesla Roadster wanna-be owners who gave Elon an interest free loan for a car that isn’t out yet¹.

Placing My Order, Tracking It Online and Picking It Up

I bought the Standard kit for the office for a total of $385 including bank charges. I was going to buy the High Performance one but it might have taken too much power and it didn’t come with a router. A lot of the local prepaid cards had problems, like Omari which I tend to use, but I was able to pay using EcoCash’s virtual card (VCN).

I thought it would arrive in two weeks but it took three weeks—weeks I spent looking at DHL’s tracking page watching the kit fly from Texas through to California then Italy, Barhain, the UAE, Johannesburg and eventually Zimbabwe. It arrived and I thought they would deliver it to me instead me having to get it at the DHL office. Thankfully, it was a walkable distance away. I expected shenanegans like paying duty or the outrageous handling fees they usually charged but nope—I didn’t have to pay any extra.

DHL was incredibly busy with a lot of people waiting for their kit. Thankfully it didn’t take too long though I spent more time wondering how to walk back with it to the office since it was far bigger than my bag. I didn’t want to risk carrying it in case some “enterprising individuals” would pick it up. I found a way back to the office, loaded up the EcoCash VCN with $110 for the 1TB Priority package and made an ad hoc installation. As soon as I powered it on, Starlink charged my card for the Standard Package at $50. I then changed to the 1TB Priority and it instantly charged me the other $50.

Initial Impressions and Mounting Options

Having done all that, I then ran a speed test and it was far faster than Liquid LTE, TelOne ADSL and Telco Fibre ever did, going up to ~30Mbps though sometimes reaching 100Mbps. Upload speeds weren’t as impressive at 10Mbps at most though still better than the local operators. The next thing to figure out was how to mount it on the roof. I’d keep it on the lawn up front but it might make it an easy target². If the Standard Kit came with a pole mount like the Mini I’d do it myself but I decided to check the Starlink Facebook Group for someone who could do the mounting[^fb].

I settled on Eland Network and Services who make their own mounts and seem to have been doing it for a while. They offered to do it for $50 with both mount and installation and it took them a few days to arrive since they were incredibly busy. Eventually they made time and installed it in a few hours. I was impressed at how they got the alignment perfect with an unobstructed view. I give them a thumbs up, contact them at +263 784 309 012 [WhatsApp].

Thoughts A Few Weeks On

Now that we’ve used it for a few weeks, it has gotten a whole lot slower given how so many people in Harare are rushing to use it. As I’m using this, Outside Harare it’s still fast, but somehow our ISPs have failed to invest in the most profitable areas and should cower their heads in shame. Then again, Zim isn’t the easiest place to invest and I doubt international bandwidth is cheap to connect to from Zim.

In spite of all that, Starlink is a much better experience. Besides the bandwidth being actually usable across 30 devices (a claim verified by how nobody complains about it anymore), the LAN seems much more robust. I wish it didn’t have to use it, but it’s what it has come down to.