Elon Musk's Starlink included as NCC approves 38 fresh internet service providers

This brings the list of ISP in the country to 255 as of September 2022, from 187 recorded in December 2021.

Starlink, a satellite internet constellation owned by Elon Musk was granted its license to operate in Nigeria in May this year. 

The company will be operating differently via its already mounted satellites while other ISPs hope to use the existing bandwidth capacity provided in the country to distribute connectivity for its customers

At the moment, Starlink provides internet access to over 40 countries using its over 3,000 mass-produced small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

As of June 2022, Starlink had over 500,000 subscribers across the globe.

As the country witnesses the addition of 38 more ISPs, one thing the NCC aims to gain is to speed up the country’s plan to achieve a 70% broadband penetration target by 2025.

This however can be made much more possible by targeting rural areas as it has been noted that most of the ISPs are more concentrated in the three major cities of Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt leaving out other cities across the country.

This continues to widen the digital gap between urban and rural dwellers in Nigerian

According to a report by Data Reportal titled “Digital 2022 Nigeria”, about 49% (104.9 million) of the Nigerian population do not have access to the internet due to limited internet service infrastructure.

While the NCC applauds the large influx of ISPs, there has remained a conflict in the industry as the smaller ISP have complained of experiencing very stiff competition with the ‘big’ guys, the Mobile Network Operators, MNO.

The fate of these smaller ISPs has, however, been threatened as most of them have been sent out of the market.

The smaller ISPs have blamed the operations of the big MNOs like MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile for the stiff competition in the retail data market as these MNOs have come out with very cheap data offers to the customers, a move which has left the smaller ISPs fighting for survival in the Nigerian internet market.