Elon Musk’s SpaceX in talks with NCC to bring its Starlink satellite internet into Nigeria
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), an American space company, is in advanced talks with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) about bringing its Starlink satellite internet to Nigeria.
Ryan Goodnight, Starlink's African Market Access Director, and Levin, a SpaceX consultant, paid a visit to the NCC to discuss the possibility and process of obtaining licenses to operate satellite internet in the country.
SpaceX is launching a constellation of low-earth orbiting (LOE) satellites to deliver Internet with low latency and high bandwidth to every corner of the globe. Nigeria is a critical market in Africa, the company has determined.
Nigeria currently has a 50 percent internet penetration rate. With the federal government aiming for a 70% penetration rate by 2025, the country will require all assistance available. With traditional telcos still battling states for rights of way, Starlink's low-latency, high-bandwidth satellite internet could be a very viable alternative.
Starlink currently has approximately 1,500 satellites in orbit. 610 satellites were launched into orbit by the company in 2021 alone. Following the approval of a license modification for SpaceX by the American communications regulator in April, SpaceX is now seeking to expand its satellite fleet to 2,814.
Coming to Nigeria
Over the last several months, the space company has been in virtual discussions with Nigeria's regulator, the NCC, with the goal of initiating the process of obtaining all necessary licenses to bring Starlink broadband services to Nigeria.
With significant progress made in the discussion, the Commission granted SpaceX's request for a face-to-face meeting to gain a better understanding of their proposal's prospects.
SpaceX representatives provided an overview of the company's plans, expectations, licensing requests, and deployment phases during the meeting. However, the NCC emphasized the importance of healthy competition in order to protect other players in the telecoms space, particularly as new technologies are introduced.
The NCC also expressed an interest in implementing necessary regulatory measures to accelerate coverage expansion in rural, unserved, and underserved areas of the country by achieving the lofty targets set out in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025.
