Billionaire and Chief Executive Officer, Elon Musk’s network company, is set to launch in some African countries soon. Elon Reeve Musk, popularly known as “Elon Musk,” announced on Twitter recently that “Starlink,” his satellite internet service, would be launched in African countries soon.
Starlink is a satellite internet service provider that was launched by Elon’s space exploration company known as “Space X.”
Starlink’s operations have been approved for countries like Nigeria and Mozambique, which have been approved for Starlink’s operations. Starlink operates in over 30 countries for legal use, and it also has about 400,000 subscribers around the world.
In 2021, Elon had earlier made preparations for its launch in Africa, especially in Nigeria. In May 2021, the space exploration company “SpaceX” sent some representatives to the organization in charge of regulating Nigeria’s telecommunications, which is the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to discuss the probability of getting a license for Starlink to legally be operated in Nigeria.
According to a report that came from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Starlink received two licenses, which include the International Gateway license and the Internet Service Provider (ISP) license, and the company will be trading as “Starlink Internet Services Nigeria Ltd.”
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) confirmed that both licenses will be effective as of May 2022. The International Gateway license has a validity of ten years, while the Internet Service Provider (ISP) license has a validity of five years, after which it has expired by the terms of the contract. It can be renewed again.
As addressed by Starlink on their website, the internet service provider has high speeds and low latency that is as low as 20ms in various locations. It also enables high data rate activities like streaming, video calls, and online gaming that have been impossible with satellite internet.
According to Wilkepedia, Elon Musk is the founder, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Engineer at SpaceX, and Product Architect of Tesla Motors; founder of The Boring Company; and also co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI.
Starlink’s first launch was on February 22, 2018 when it launched its first two Starlink test crafts, named “TinTinA” and “TinTinB,” but the first 60 satellites were launched on May 23, 2019.
The European Space Agency estimates that as of January 5, 2022About 12,480 satellites have been launched in all of the history of Starlink, with only 4,900 of those still active.
Elon Musk, by birth, is a citizen of South Africa but currently has Canada’s citizenship since his long stay in Canada from the year 1988 and America’s citizenship as well, since his long stay in America from the year 2002.
According to Forbes, Elon Musk is on Forbes’ list of billionaires for 2022 and also on the Forbes 400 list for 2021, with a total net worth of US $233.7 billion.
Musk is known to be a powerful industrialist with many sources of wealth. He founded PayPal. PayPal was formally known as “X Box”. It is a company that primarily operates on online financial transactions. He is currently making plans to acquire the social media platform “Twitter” for a sum of $45 billion.
Conclusion
As at March 2022, the cost of using Starlink to connect to the internet via Starlink satellite was set at $110 per month, and the one-time hardware fee for Starlink’s receiver dish is also $599. No one knows the actual price at which it would be available to African countries, but it is surely going to be a threat to the telecommunication companies already present in these countries.
Meta Description
Elon Reeve Musk, better known as “Elon Musk,” recently stated on Twitter that “Starlink,” his satellite broadband service, would soon be available in African countries.