Elon Musk's Starlink Progress With Plan to Debut Globally, Compete Against MTN, Airtel, Glo in Nigeria
- Elon Musk is gearing towards expanding Starlink's global reach as the company has spent between $5 billion and $10 billion to launch thousands of satellite
- Starlink is expected to gulp between $20 billion or $30 billion for the network provider to compete at optimal against global rivals
- The number of Starlink users is projected to grow to about half a million by next year, and Nigerians will eventually become subscribers as the firm as met with FG
Satellite company established by Elon Musk, Starlink, is heading closer to achieving its goal of providing network to Nigeria and the 5% of the world’s population.
There are over 69,000 active users of Starlink, but the American billionaire said the number will rise to half a million by second quarter of next year - with regions unable to access conventional fibre and wireless networks gaining significantly.
Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, a spacecraft firm sitting among Musk's investment portfolios. It plans to provide high-speed internet to users anyway on the planet.
Source: Getty Images
Starlink interest in Nigerian telecoms market
Already, the company has began talks with Nigerian government to make its intention known that it wants to be an operator in Africa's largest economy.
Legit.ng had reported that Starlink representatives came to Nigeria to meet with Ubale Maska, the executive commissioner of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Maska represented Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, at the meeting. They discussed necessary licenses and Starlink's plan for Nigeria.
What is Elon Musk Saying about Starlink
The network provider has spent between $5 billion and $10 billion to launch over 1,500 satellites, while $20 billion or $30 billion is needed for longterm operation to remain competitive.
In Nigeria, when Starlink debuts, it will be competing with telecommunications giants, MTN Nigeria, Glo, Airtel and 9mobile, aside from competitors in other global market.
This will cost billions of dollars, hence Musk's reason for stating that the first step of Starlink is not to go bankrupt:
"Our goal is not to go bankrupt. Step No. 1 for Starlink is don’t go bankrupt. If we succeed in not going bankrupt then that’ll be great and we can move on from there.”
Elon Musk to partner with some telecoms
Despite the competition that will exist in the market, Musk stated that Starlink has and will partner with telecommunications companies in some countries:
“We have two quite significant partnerships with major country [telecommunications companies], that I’d like to be able to announce now but obviously we defer to our partners to make any announcement.
"And we are in discussions with a number of other [telecommunications companies] to provide Starlink access."
Elon Musk omitted from Bitcoin council
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Musk, who was a former promoter of bitcoin has been removed from the cryptocurrency council.
The council is called North American Bitcoin Mining Council, and it was created by Microstrategy founder, Michael Saylor, who is also a crypto investor.
Although Musk played a role in the council described as an educator enlightening the the group about the pros and cons of the most popular cryptocurrency.
Source: Legit.ng
