SpaceX, an American private space exploration company founded by Tech billionaire, Elon Musk, is seeking necessary licenses to bring Starlink, its internet service into Nigeria.
This was disclosed by Ryan Goodnight, SpaceX’s Starlink Market Access Director for Africa, in a meeting with Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) Executive Vice-Chairman, Prof. Umar Danbatta, in Abuja.
According to Goodnight, Nigeria has been identified as a critical market in Africa. Before the face-to-face meeting happened last week, SpaceX had been discussing with the NCC virtually over the past several months.
Danbatta, who was represented by Ubale Maska, executive commissioner of technical services, said the agency will work on necessary modalities to ensure that it balances the need for healthy competition with regard to the entry of new technologies, in order to protect all industry stakeholders.
He noted 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.
With the government’s plan to bring in 90% of its population online by 2025, it’ll be open to multiple avenues to bring this to reality.
A March 2021 “Space in Africa” report revealed that the company already planned a late 2021 and 2022 launch, first in Nigeria, and then the rest of Africa.