Elon Musk has cut the cost of Starlink in Nigeria.

Elon Musk’s satellite company, SpaceX, is now available to customers in Nigeria, making it the first country in Africa to have the capability.

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The company has also reduced the price of its subscription plan and hardware to N19,260 and N274,098.

Starlink stated that its service is operational throughout the nation in a tweet on its Twitter page yesterday.

“Starlink is now available in Nigeria, the first African country to receive service,” the tweet read.

The company had said customers interested could pre-order the starter kits at the price of $600 for the hardware and $43 per month, amounting to about N438,000 and N31,000 at the parallel market rate for subscriptions to its services.

“Starlink is available in your area. Customers in your region typically see download speeds of 50–200 Mbps. No contracts; a 30-day trial.

“Shipping times from order are currently estimated to be one to two weeks,” the company said, adding that service costs N19,260 per month and hardware costs N274,098.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, described it as a milestone.

“We have made it again.” “@SpaceX, thank you for hosting me at your headquarters in the United States in December 2022 to complete the logistics for the deployment,” he tweeted.

Some Nigerians who pre-ordered the hardware last year paid the initial amount in dollars. But the company’s prices are now quoted in naira, which means that Nigerians can make payments using their naira debit cards.

Pantami had stated that Nigeria has achieved 100 percent broadband coverage with the operation of Starlink, whose satellite service covers the length and breadth of the country.

According to him, through the National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2020–2025, Nigeria was targeting 90 percent broadband coverage by the year 2025, and this has been achieved ahead of schedule through the licensing of Starlink, as Nigerians can now have access to high-speed internet from any part of the country.

Increased competition: With the price slash, the competition in the internet service provisioning space in Nigeria is expected to get stiffer as Starlink is now challenging the likes of MTN, Airtel, Globacom, 9mobile, and hundreds of other Internet service providers in Nigeria, providing services via different technologies, including fiber and satellite.