[imagesource: Wikimedia Commons]
SpaceX’s Starlink internet service is currently provided in 47 countries in the world and has over one million users.
And now, finally, an African country has been added to that list.
Last year, SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk, announced Starlink’s plans to expand into Africa and in May, he said Starlink had been approved to provide broadband internet in Nigeria and Mozambique.
Last week Monday in a tweet, SpaceX confirmed that Nigeria was the first African country to enjoy its services.
Starlink is now available in Nigeria – the first African country to receive service! → https://t.co/slZbTmZmAt
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 30, 2023
Nigeria’s minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Ali Pantami, also celebrated the arrangement on Twitter:
We have made it again. @SpaceX thank you for hosting me in your Headquarters, USA in December, 2022 to complete the logistics for the deployment. https://t.co/gkp2sBkR8i
— Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (@ProfIsaPantami) January 31, 2023
As Punch explains, Starlink aims to deliver a global broadband network, using a constellation of Low Earth Orbit to provide high-speed internet coverage. These LEO’s have the capacity to penetrate rural and geographically isolated areas:
The ‘Nigerian National Broadband Plan: 2020–2025,’ reads in part, “The new Broadband Plan is designed to deliver data download speeds across Nigeria of a minimum 25Mbps in urban areas, and 10Mbps in rural areas, with effective coverage available to at least 90 per cent of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per 1GB of data (i.e. 2 per cent of median income or 1 per cent of minimum wage).
However, there are concerns about Starlink’s high price hindering the ability of Nigerian citizens to access its services.
Meanwhile, even though Starlink is expanding, Elon is concerned that the service is losing money, per Business Insider:
Musk said in October that Starlink was suffering from a lack of funds, in response to a Twitter user who referenced CNN’s report about SpaceX asking the Pentagon to pay for the service in Ukraine. He later said SpaceX had withdrawn the request for funding over Starlink in Ukraine.
SpaceX has provided the country with thousands of Starlink dishes since Russia invaded in February. The billionaire said in October that only 10,630 out of 25,300 Starlink terminals in Ukraine were paying for service.
Eish, big dreams cost big money Elon, and not everyone can afford to go big.
[sources:businessinsider&punchng]
