• South Africa’s Telkom seeks LEO partners to boost coverage and emergency services

• Move follows similar satellite collaborations by Vodacom and MTN

• Rural networks offer growth potential despite high deployment costs

South African telecom operator Telkom said on November 18, that it is exploring partnerships with low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers to expand connectivity in rural areas and support emergency services. The initiative follows a trend already seen in the telecom sector with operators such as Vodacom and MTN.

“We already had partnerships with such providers and we will continue to engage and re-engage those partnerships as well,” said group CEO Serame Taukobong. He added that these collaborations complement Telkom’s fiber-optic network in areas poorly served by traditional infrastructure.

On November 12, Vodacom announced a partnership with U.S. company Starlink to expand network coverage in rural areas. The company said the technology could help bridge the digital divide where conventional infrastructure is difficult to deploy. Its parent firm, Vodafone, had already signed an agreement in September 2023 with Project Kuiper (now Amazon Leo), Amazon’s satellite initiative, to extend 4G/5G coverage in Europe and Africa.

In December 2023, MTN Group revealed that it was exploring partnerships with several LEO satellite companies, including Lynk Global, AST SpaceMobile, Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb, and Omnispace. Two approaches are being tested: the first involves receiving satellite signals at telecom sites before redistribution; the second, known as Direct to Device (D2D), connects mobile devices directly to satellites. In March 2025, MTN successfully tested a phone call via Lynk Global’s satellite network in South Africa.

These initiatives are part of broader efforts by South African operators to expand rural coverage. In April 2023, Vodacom announced a 60 billion rand (about $3.5 billion) investment plan over five years, with rural coverage as a key priority.

Growing interest in these regions is driven by their strong growth potential, as they host thousands of unconnected customers while competition intensifies in saturated urban centers. Long overlooked for their limited profitability, these areas also pose technical challenges. According to the GSMA, they are often sparsely populated and characterized by difficult terrain, which significantly raises investment costs.

Telkom had 24.7 million mobile subscribers at the end of September, of whom 18.5 million were Internet users, and reported revenue of 22.1 billion rand for the first half of fiscal year 2025–2026. MTN had 40.1 million subscribers, including 22 million Internet users. Vodacom had 46.1 million, with 26.9 million Internet users. The rest of the market is shared by Rain, Cell C, and other smaller operators.