14 December 2021

The South African government has initiated a review of the national space programme to accelerate the development of telecom and location satellites, according to the country’s minister of communications and digital technology.

Speaking November 22 at the 23rd Southern African Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC), held from 21 to 23 November, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said “we are currently working on accelerating the development of South African-owned satellites and are looking at ways to condense an eight to ten year project into three to four years, but this depends on access to finance, which I hope will be from telecommunications, mining, etc”.

The minister added that “companies will participate” in the project and co-finance this development. “Of course, we cannot afford to deploy a single satellite and as a government we will coordinate with South African industry and other interested investors to also deploy South African-owned low earth orbit satellites,” she added.

South Africa’s renewed interest in satellites stems from the growth that this segment of the telecom market has seen since last year with Covid-19 pandemic. Across Africa, many satellite telecom service providers have been ramping up contracts with various governments to meet the growing demand for connectivity in rural and landlocked areas. Prior to Covid-19, since 2018, satellite connectivity had already regained its appeal after fibre optics advocated since 2010 showed its limitations in connecting landlocked areas of Africa.

Other African nations such as Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, have launched several projects to build their own satellite equipment in order to further consolidate their sovereignty in telecoms and also earn revenues from telecom capacities that would be sold to other countries.

By 2025, the new satellites that South Africa wants to develop should help strengthen the universal connectivity plan that the government wants to initiate in the next 24 months. Ntshavheni added that the meeting of the BRICS economic group’s communications ministers November 11 explained that the objective is to facilitate access for the entire South African population to high-quality connectivity, which is essential for everyone to participate in the digital economy.