SpaceX Starlink Internet service will soon be available across the West African country of Nigeria, according to Nigeria’s Minister of Communications and Digital Economy Isa Ali Pantami. SpaceX already delivered some Starlink user terminals to the country to commence services. “As part of the partnership, SpaceX is to provide broadband access across the whole of Nigeria, enabling nationwide access to broadband connectivity way ahead of the December 2025 schedule, as outlined in our national broadband plan,” said Pantami. “With this collaboration with SpaceX’s Starlink, Nigeria is set to be the first African country to introduce the service.” Nigeria’s goals was to cover 90% of the country’s population with reliable internet access by 2025, the goal is now attainable because the Starlink satellite network is easy to set up and capable of beaming high-speed internet to rural and remote communities. SpaceX’s official Starlink Coverage Map says the service is ‘coming soon’ to Nigeria, users must input their address on the website to find out if it’s already available in their specific area.

The company sent an email to potential customers living in Nigeria, stating that the service is available for pre-order. “Order now to reserve your Starlink. Starlink expects to expand service in your area [Nigeria] in 2023. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship,” the email says. The hardware to access the satellite internet service costs $600 [N438,000] in Nigeria with an internet subscription of $43 [N31,390] per month.

Bello Gbadebo, a software engineer and technical writer who lives in Nigeria, shared on Twitter [@Gbahdeyboh] that he had the opportunity to test the Starlink network this week. He is one of the first-ever Starlink users in the continent. “Just got a chance to test my SpaceX Starlink out. I haven't tested extensively (I intend to do so this weekend) but I'm pretty impressed so far,” he said on January 3rd. “Got about 20Mbps [Megabits per second] on the initial test and it went up to about 240Mbps afterwards. The latency is pretty decent as well,” he shared. “I'm testing from Abeokuta, Ogun State where I've struggled greatly with sub par Internet. Even hubs here don't have the internet bit figured out yet, so it's really a big deal to me that I'm able to get above 200Mbps,” said Bello. “I get this speed despite not putting the dish in a very elevated space and having over 30% obstruction which my Starlink considers really bad. Wondering if it'll get any better if placed on the roof.”

Tesmanian