Elon Musk's internet service, Starlink now active in Nigeria

The satellite service company had earlier disclosed the product would be preordered in the country at $600 and that interested customers should be able to subscribe to the internet service for a token fee of $43 every month amounting to about N438,000 and N31,000 in local currency for subscriptions to its services.

Starlink’s presence in Nigeria was confirmed in a Twitter post by its parent company, SpaceX owned by billionaire Elon Musk.  “Starlink is now available in Nigeria – the first African country to receive service,” the tweet said.

The company also confirmed to customers via its website that users will have a 30 days trial with its device.

The update also revealed that while the hardware would be available for N274,098, the subscription would come at a price of N19,260 indicating a huge reduction in the amount earlier announced.

“Starlink is currently available in your area. Customers in your region typically see download speeds of 50-200 Mbps. No contracts, 30-day trial,” “Shipping times are currently estimated to be 1 to 2 weeks from order… N19,260/month for service and N274,098 for hardware.” the company said.

The Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC approved the Internet company’s license in May 2022 and also entered into a partnership with Space X for the delivery of broadband services across Nigeria. Starlink was supposed to start operations in Nigeria by the year-end, of 2022.

With the subscription figures now quoted in Naira, this is a huge relief for some Nigerians that will want to patronize the product using their naira debit cards as against the dollar fees earlier quoted.