Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making arrangements to secure necessary licences for introducing Starlink, its satellite-based broadband services, to Nigeria.
The company had been in discussion with the Nigerian Communications Commission virtually for several months, Checkout Magazine learnt.
Having made significant progress in the discussion, the NCC granted SpaceX’s request for a face-to-face discussion to gain better insights on the prospects of its proposal.
Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, NCC, Ubale Maska, said, “As the regulator of a highly dynamic sector in Nigeria, the commission is conscious of the need to ensure that our regulatory actions are anchored on national interest.
“We have listened to your presentation and we will review it vis-à-vis our regulatory direction of ensuring effective and a sustainable telecoms ecosystem where a licensee’s operational model does not dampen healthy competition among other licensees.”
The SpaceX’s team was led by SpaceX’s Starlink Market Access Director for Africa, Ryan Goodnight.
Starlink is an Internet service launched by SpaceX to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity especially in areas of the globe where Internet is expensive, unreliable, or entirely unavailable.
According to Punch, Starlink satellites are 60 times closer to earth than traditional satellites, hence they are suited to areas where ground infrastructure might be a challenge to ensure that they can deliver high-speed broadband Internet to areas where the infrastructure is missing.
