US firm SpaceX has reportedly begun talks with Burundi’s government over plans to launch its Starlink Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband service in the country from the second quarter of 2024. With the majority of the Burundian population still lacking access to high speed internet services, the Starlink initiative is seen as a sensible solution to delivering connectivity to remote and rural areas with no traditional terrestrial network alternatives. Agence Ecofin notes that the plan could dovetail with the country’s plans to launch 5G services commercially from July 2024.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate earlier this year Burundi’s Telecommunications Regulation and Control Agency (ARCT) published its roadmap for the deployment of 5G services in 2024, noting that the availability of frequencies is a major issue for its development and added that the successful deployment of 5G requires the timely availability of sufficient spectrum under appropriate conditions. It plans to assign a continuous band of 60MHz-100MHz in the sub-6GHz bands along with at least 800MHz of millimetre wave (mmWave) spectrum above 6GHz.
TeleGeography notes that in December 2023 the ARCT plans to release spectrum in the 700MHz, 2.3GHz, 2.5GHz, 3.5GHz and 26GHz bands, with the granting of authorisations to test 5G scheduled to take place in January 2024. Whilst the details are still to be decided, the roadmap notes that ‘Depending on the availability of the spectrum and the needs of the market, the ARCT may set up a mechanism [e.g. auction] for selecting candidates for the use of the spectrum predefined in advance.’
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