Starlink on their mind: What's @Trending in Mzansi

Starlink is trending again, this time over whether South Africa needs it. Social media users on X share their views:

@WillarShoko Eswathini now has an average download speed of 255-355 Mbps, faster than all states in America. This has been made possible by utilising local infrastructure in Southern Africa. Data centres, IXPs, and fibre in both Mozambique and South Africa. It’s possible for the whole of Africa to have better Starlink internet than the rest of the world by embracing technology and approving Starlink in Africa as a continent. The approval can be done today; any other option will probably take forever, be more costly, and will significantly widen the gap. All Chinese students are learning AI today, most Africa’s students don’t have access to the internet.

@JenPeremore South Africans deserve Starlink operating in South Africa which will provide access to internet to rural communities, and access to news which gives a platform to a range of voices even government-opposing voices because that is what democracy is about and that is what freedom of speech is about. All the major network providers including Vodacom, CellC, MTN and Telkom must step aside and let Starlink operate in SA, because having Starlink operate in SA is not about protecting corporate interests but about the freedom of all South Africans. It’s about access to unbiased information, a range of voices and empowering all Soutb Africans. BEE is not empowering anyone.

@chante75967 If China had a superior technology to @Starlink, comrade @CyrilRamaphosa would’ve allowed it. He clings to local cellular service providers because it’s keeping him rich. We do want Starlink, @elonmusk. South Africa is falling behind technologically.

@Maso_241119 Not sure about Congo, but South Africa has one of the fastest internets in the world, and not as expensive as Starlink at that. Yet Elon forces his way through as if we need his internet, we don’t.
 

@mat24486 What’s the obsession with Starlink. Most people don’t even know why they want Starlink in SA. Every time I hear Starlink and South Africa in a sentence, it feels like there’s something deeper than that.

@Butch89803114 Old trick by ANC CRIMINALS to keep Starlink out of South Africa using techniques from an old bag of tricks to indefinitely delay Starlink’s ability to enter the country without going through middlemen.-and will PUNISH THE MIDDLEMAN and all in South Africa.

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