SpaceX, the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, said on Monday that it has launched Starlink services in Nigeria. This makes Nigeria the first country in Africa to get these services.
In 2019, SpaceX unveiled its Starlink satellite broadband network. The platform’s aim is to cover the entire world with mobile phone service after 2023, and it now covers around 46 nations with satellite internet connectivity.
SpaceX is a California-based American satellite communication, satellite launch, and spacecraft manufacturing firm.
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and the microblogging site Twitter, started the company in an effort to lower the price of space travel to Mars and to make the colonization of Mars a reality.
Analysts say that the high cost of Starlink’s internet service may prevent many Nigerians from accessing this service, despite the fact that Starlink’s internet services have been said to be accessible from any part of the country, filling the existing internet connectivity gap across rural communities in Nigeria where other network operators could not deploy their services.
Nigeria’s Communications Minister Isa Pantami revealed last week that the country attained 100 percent internet coverage with the license and operation of SpaceX’s Starlink, when presenting the scorecard of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government in the ICT sector.
“Based on the National Broadband Plan, we were to have 90% broadband coverage by December 2025. However, we recently gave a license to Starlink to provide services and this has given us 100% coverage, about 3 years ahead of schedule,” the minister said.
