Local ICT solutions company, Frampol, has become (as far as we know) the first Authorised Starlink Reseller in Zimbabwe. ZimPriceCheck revealed this morning that the Frampol announced to customers:
“As our valued customer, we are thrilled to announce that Frampol has been officially approved as a Starlink Reseller! We are providing the opportunity to secure your kit while awaiting Government approval.”
When we wrote last week that Starlink was targeting a September 1 go-live date, our sources advised us IMC, the company that was politically endorsed to become sole Starlink Distributor in Zimbabwe had still not secured the reseller partnership with Starlink. So we speculated other ISPs were probably in the picture:
As far as we know, the IMC position we reported hasn’t changed – our information says Starlink won’t touch that company with a very long stick. We’re checking again with everyone however just in case. But also remember, Potraz itself said any ISP could technically be a Starlink distributor as long as they secure the partnership and distribute kits under their license. That leaves some room for other players to get in on this.
We’re happy we were right. We’re bummed we didn’t dig any deeper.
We expect more ISP to announce their reseller status with Starlink, assuming ofcourse that Frampol didn’t secure some kind of buffer time to sell the huge consignment of Starlink kits they have to buy to secure this partnership. Dandemutande and Liquid especially, are likely already working hard to be authorised resellers. If you can’t beat Starlink…
Frampol is not new to selling connectivity services in Zimbabwe. They have been in the business for some 2 decades now. The company has focused on B2B connectivity, selling internet solutions (including connectivity itself) atop the network infrastructure of longer established companies such as Liquid.
We suspect the fact that Frampol has always considered connectivity as a solution meeting a customer need, instead of an infrastructure enabled installation, is why they have moved with speed to secure this partnership. Established ISPs with infrastructure probably looked at Starlink more as competition that they reluctantly have no choice but to work with…eventually. Some probably still do. Otherwise, why is this announcement not coming from Liquid, TelOne, Telco, Powertel, or Dandemutande?
In terms of when Starlink is going live, it does look like any time now, barring something big unexpected happening. This is Zimbabwe. If you’re keen to move over from your ISP to Starlink, it is definitely wise to reserve your kit right away, either via the Starlink website or with Frampol.
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