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South Africans can now make satellite calls, but it will cost R24 a minute
Imagine standing in the middle of the Karoo, or deep in the bushveld, with no signal bars in sight. No WhatsApp. No calls. Just silence.
Now imagine being able to make a call from that very spot. It is possible. But it will cost you.
The United Arab Emirates-based space technology company Space42 has officially brought its Thuraya 4 satellite service to South Africa. Alongside it comes a satellite-enabled smartphone called the Thuraya Skyphone. It looks like a regular Android device. But when the towers disappear, it connects to space instead.
And that connection comes at a price.
What does a satellite call really cost?
According to Thuraya’s published pricing, voice calls from a Thuraya Prepay SIM to most other networks cost 1.50 US dollars per minute. That works out to roughly R24 per minute at current exchange rates.
Calls from Thuraya to Thuraya are slightly cheaper at 1.19 dollars per minute. Calls to other satellite networks are significantly higher, at 8 dollars per minute.
Text messages are charged at 0.50 dollars per SMS. Data is billed at 3.50 dollars per megabit, calculated in small increments. There is also an annual fee of 39 units, which Thuraya states is approximately 39 dollars, charged on the anniversary of SIM activation.
Users must keep enough credit on their SIM to cover that annual fee. If the SIM remains inactive for more than 12 months, additional monthly fees apply. There is a grace period if you run out of credit, but full reactivation requires going through a service provider and paying a reactivation fee.
There is also a Nova SIM option offering lower call rates in 139 countries. South Africa, however, is not listed among the countries eligible for those reduced rates.
In short, this is not a budget replacement for your everyday mobile contract.
So, who is this actually for?
Speaking on Cape Talk, Space42’s chief business development officer, Jassem Nasser, explained that Thuraya 4 is not designed to compete with home broadband services like Starlink. Instead, it serves a different purpose entirely.
Thuraya 4 NGS is a high-capacity geostationary mobile satellite platform launched in January 2025. It is built for mission-critical communications across land, sea, and air. That means industries such as mining, logistics, maritime operations, aviation, disaster response, and security.
South Africa is considered a strategic market. It is one of Africa’s most advanced telecommunications environments and plays a key role in continental growth plans. The rollout also aligns with the country’s broader 2030 ambitions around digital inclusion and infrastructure resilience.
That said, Space42 is not limiting access to corporates. The Thuraya Skyphone is available to consumers through local distribution partners. It is a dual-mode 5G Android smartphone that allows users to insert both a standard GSM SIM and a Thuraya SIM. The two can operate at the same time.
In theory, you could use your normal mobile network in the city and switch to satellite mode when you head off-grid.
A luxury lifeline or a necessary tool?
For most South Africans, R24 per minute will feel steep. In a country where prepaid mobile bundles are fiercely competitive and data prices are constantly under scrutiny, satellite calling is clearly positioned as a premium service.
But in remote farming regions, offshore fishing vessels, long-haul trucking routes, or during natural disasters when terrestrial networks fail, that R24 could mean the difference between silence and safety.
There has already been curiosity online about whether this signals a new era of mobile connectivity in rural South Africa. Others question whether the pricing makes it accessible to the average consumer.
The reality is this: satellite connectivity has never been about cheap convenience. It is about reliability when everything else drops out.
For now, Thuraya 4’s presence in South Africa marks a significant technological milestone. Whether it becomes a niche safety net or a more widely adopted tool will depend largely on pricing, partnerships, and how the market responds.
One thing is certain. If you ever find yourself in the middle of nowhere and your phone still works, you will know exactly what that minute is worth.
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Source: MyBroadband
Featured Image: iStock
