To take a random example I'm familiar with Uganda has 97%+ LTE-A population coverage, which is as good if not significantly better than the US.
External bandwidth costs are also coming down massively as loads of new submarine fiber cables are connecting africa.
However, even a basic smartphone will cost 400%+ of many people's monthly income. Penetration of feature phones is high though as they are so cheap.
Starlink imo will not be transformational for these places. It will be extremely useful for somewhat niche cases like rural broadband in the US, cruise ships and planes. It won't work well in cities or even suburban areas (20gigabit per sat is only 2,000HD video streams - which a small city of 100k will completely swamp).
Uganda is much smaller than the USA, and more densely populated. Country-wide LTE makes a lot more economic sense there, especially when you consider that mobile internet is the primary way of connecting to the Internet in Africa.
External bandwidth costs are also coming down massively as loads of new submarine fiber cables are connecting africa.
However, even a basic smartphone will cost 400%+ of many people's monthly income. Penetration of feature phones is high though as they are so cheap.
Starlink imo will not be transformational for these places. It will be extremely useful for somewhat niche cases like rural broadband in the US, cruise ships and planes. It won't work well in cities or even suburban areas (20gigabit per sat is only 2,000HD video streams - which a small city of 100k will completely swamp).