05 July 2023
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is currently engaged in advanced negotiations with Starlink to reduce the cost of its services to make them accessible to the entire population.
It was on January 30 that Starlink finally launched its commercial services in Nigeria about seven months after acquiring the operating licenses from the NCC. The services cost 38,000 Naira per month with a one-time hardware cost of 378,000 Naira and a delivery charge of 16,700 Naira. These costs that are beyond the reach of the average Nigerian, especially if they live in rural areas.
The negotiations to reduce the cost of Starlink's services are part of the NCC's actions to accelerate the adoption of telecommunications services in Nigeria and the achievement of the government's digital transformation ambitions. The regulator wants to boost broadband penetration to 90% by 2025, and well beyond 50% by the end of 2023, in line with Nigeria's National Broadband Plan (NNBP 2020-2025).
“We are still studying the price of the Starlink terminal so that all Nigerians can avail this service. It's faster than 5G and I think the business world covers the whole country. This is an important measure that we have put in place to meet the challenge of the access deficit which is around 97% today. We have not been shy about deploying fixed and wireless infrastructure, especially in rural and underserved areas of the country, to bridge the access gap,” said Umar Danbatta, executive vice president of the NCC.
