Featured Image - From Left to Right: SpaceX Consultant Levin Born; Director Spectrum Administration, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Oluwatoyin Asaju, Executive Commissioner of Technical Services NCC Ubale Maska; SpaceX’s Starlink Market Access Director for Africa Ryan Goodnight, and Executive Commissioner Stakeholder Management Adeleke Adewolu. May 2021 / Source: NCC
SpaceX is working to connect rural and remote areas around the globe to the internet. The company is building the Starlink broadband constellation in Low Earth Orbit, it currently operates approximately 1,844 satellites that beam internet service to over 140,000 customers across 20 countries. Among the countries served are: United States, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. Company officials are working with telecommunication regulatory agencies to get Starlink service to more countries, especially in rural territories where people do not have access to multiple internet providers that provide reliable connection.
SpaceX looks forward to providing Starlink internet service in Nigeria, Africa, in 2022. In May this year, SpaceX’s Starlink Market Access Director for Africa Ryan Goodnight had a meeting with Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) Executive Vice-Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta and NCC Executive Commissioner of Technical Services Ubale Maska. Mr. Goodnight was “supported by the company’s consultant, Levin Born, the company provided an overview of its plans, expectations, licensing requests and deployment phases during the meeting,” NCC shared in a press release earlier this year.
During the meeting they discussed bringing Starlink to the West Africa country. SpaceX’s Starlink will enable the NCC to connect hard-to-reach remote areas where fiber-optic cables and terrestrial infrastructure is not available and/or too expensive for internet providers to build. Maska stated that “the Commission is interested in making necessary regulatory efforts to drive the coverage of rural, unserved and underserved areas of the country through the accomplishments of the lofty targets contained in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025.” He said the government aims for a “70 percent broadband penetration target, covering 90 percent of the population by 2025.”
NCC granted SpaceX a license for “the satellite constellation can beam their signals till November 2026 over Nigerian territory” earlier this year. The company is expected to provide service to rural communities then expand to more areas once they launch more internet-beaming satellites in 2022. SpaceX is accepting service pre-orders, to see if service is available in your area visit SpaceX's official website Starlink.com.
.@SpaceX Starlink Market Access Director for Africa, Ryan Goodnight was in Abuja May 6 to make a presentation to @NgComCommission. SpaceX has been in talks w/ NCC for several months, regarding licensing of Starlink, its satellite-based broadband services: https://t.co/N6qHeNAw0q pic.twitter.com/9dDWd7sM1T
— tolu ogunlesi (@toluogunlesi) May 9, 2021
SpaceX Releases A New Starlink Antenna & Wi-Fi Router To Connect To The Satellite Broadband Internet Networkhttps://t.co/4AdOKOuVeH
— Tesmanian.com (@Tesmanian_com) November 11, 2021
Featured Image Source: Nigeria Communications Commission
Source: SpaceX
About the Author
Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo
Evelyn J. Arevalo joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover news as a Space Journalist and SpaceX Starbase Texas Correspondent. Evelyn is specialized in rocketry and space exploration. The main topics she covers are SpaceX and NASA.
