The Global South’s digital future must not belong to Bezos and Musk

Amazon recently announced that its Leo satellite internet service is expected to enter South Africa in 2027 through Herotel, the country’s largest fixed internet provider. The partnership, Leo’s first agreement of its kind in Africa, will connect homes and businesses beyond the reach of fibre and fixed wireless networks. Herotel serves more than 350,000 customers in over 550 towns, giving Amazon a route into farming areas and rural communities where distance, terrain and sparse populations make conventional networks costly.Amazon is entering a market already being transformed by satellite internet. Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, served 10.3 million subscribers across 164 countries and markets through about 9,000 satellites as of March, reflecting its rapid expansion throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia.Satellite services could bring coverage to underserved regions, but whether poorer households can afford them remains uncertain. Yet the promise of universal connectivity carries a deeper risk: The communities brought online by these services may become dependent on foreign corporations that control the infrastructure on which their econ...