👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Kuiper chases Starlink

On March 28, a Kenyan court ruled that Umba, a digital bank, must pay KES 2.88 million ($21,600) for unfairly firing its former head of growth during her probation period. The court ruled that Umba didn’t follow due process—even during probation. There were allegedly no written evaluations, no formal warning, and the dismissal was delivered via WhatsApp.

Previously, we saw an ex-employee win an unfair termination case against another Kenyan startup, Marketforce. With Umba, the message is the same: Kenyan law is clear—probation doesn’t cancel out the need for fair treatment. Phasing out employees, just like hiring them, should be handled with more care.

If we know anything by now, it’s that Kenyans are litigious. Therefore, startups should be careful in how they manage exits and employee disputes. 

Startups operate in high-pressure environments. Roles shift quickly, targets evolve, and sometimes hires just don’t work out. But without clear internal processes, even well-meant decisions can end up in court. That’s the first lesson here: documentation and communication of clear expectations for new hires will save companies from legal headaches. 

Startups should not avoid hiring out of fear of legal risk. Instead, they need to protect themselves by doing the basics right. It doesn’t take much to stay compliant, but it does take consistency. As this case shows, skipping the formalities can be more costly than doing things by the book. 

Employees are turning their contracts page by page to spot loopholes, so it is important that employers honour these agreements down to the minutest detail. For example, if a startup mandates severance pay for employees it transitions out of the company, simply not honouring that agreement can be damaging—both legally and reputationally.

With the stories about unfair termination coming out of Kenya, employees are learning their rights. Startups, on the other hand, should invest in proper HR processes, document performance thoroughly, and seek legal advice when necessary to avoid costly missteps.

We can wager a few pennies that South Africa is one of those non-Starlink markets that keeps billionaire Elon Musk restless. Okay, maybe not restless—but his intense lobbying and soft fallout with friends in high places (looking at you, President Cyril Ramaphosa) suggest there’s more than casual interest.

For months, Musk has pushed hard to bring Starlink to his birth country. But a law requiring 30% local black ownership for foreign companies has been a thorn in his side—bad enough that he publicly played the race card.

Still, South Africans want Starlink badly. Since July 2024, they have used the ISP’s roaming service by piggybacking off neighbouring countries. Despite regulators calling it illegal—and Starlink itself threatening twice to cut users off—this hasn’t stopped people. While there’s no official data, some estimates peg South African roaming users at several thousands. That’s in comparison with Kenya’s 19,146 users, where Starlink is licenced and has been operating for over a year. For a market where the service technically doesn’t exist, this is huge.

Yet even as Musk pushes uphill, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos is making his own quiet entry. Amazon’s Project Kuiper, a rival satellite internet venture, is launching its first 27 satellites on April 9. And here’s the kicker: Kuiper has already partnered with Vodacom, South Africa’s second-largest telecom operator, for local rollout.

Where Musk has met resistance, Bezos seems to be moving in with less friction and a well-placed ally. Project Kuiper may be late to the party, but South Africa’s appetite for fast, reliable internet is no longer up for debate.

Do we have a potential battle of billionaire tech CEOs on our hands? Yes, we do.

Mafab Communications, one of Nigeria’s 5G licence holders since 2021, has missed yet another self-imposed deadline to launch services by Q1 2025. Despite securing a $273.6 million licence in 2021 and promising to launch services in Abuja and Kano, Mafab has not deployed a single operational site. 

With no operational site despite promising 102, the telecom upstart’s repeated delays—stretching back to 2022 including a public launch with no service follow-through—have left Nigeria’s 5G market dominated by telecom giants MTN and Airtel. 

MTN and Airtel have seized the 5G market. MTN has rolled out 5G services in at least 13 cities and Airtel is expanding in urban centres, including Kano. With both incumbents offering fixed wireless broadband and mobile 5G services, Mafab’s window for differentiation is closing rapidly.

Yet, Mafab’s repeated failure to meet 5G rollout deadlines in Nigeria is becoming emblematic of deeper structural issues in the country’s telecom sector. 

Nigeria’s 5G ambition was to democratise fast internet access and foster competition. Instead, it’s drifting toward a duopoly. Without a bailout, an aggressive partnership with infrastructure providers, or a strategic pivot—perhaps into wholesale or enterprise broadband—Mafab may end up as a cautionary tale.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the country’s communications regulator, issued an ultimatum in December 2024, but scepticism grows as funding woes and Nigeria’s forex crisis hinder Mafab’s $122 million deployment plans.

In this race, good intentions are not enough. Infrastructure, financing, and execution are the only currencies that count. If Mafab continues to lag, the NCC may have little choice but to revoke its licence.

Can Mafab turn things around in Q2 2025? That’s the question on everyone’s minds.

See you tomorrow, same inbox.