‘$600 for hardware, subscription at $43’ — Elon Musk’s Starlink begins preorder sales in Nigeria

January 3, 2023 5:12 pm

Elon Musk’s Starlink, a satellite internet service, has announced the prices for its starter kits as preorder sales begin in Nigeria.

Starlink made the announcement in a statement seen by TheCable on Tuesday.

The development follows the company’s plans to roll out and expand its services to Nigeria this year.

According to the statement, interested customers can preorder the starter kits at the price of $600 (N438,000 at the current parallel market exchange rate) for the hardware.

Starlink also said customers will pay $43 (N31,390) per month for subscriptions to its services.

“Order now to reserve your Starlink. Starlink expects to expand service in your area (Nigeria) in 2023. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship,” the statement said.

“$43/month for service and $600 for hardware.”

Meanwhile, after the journalist tried to make a preorder, it was learnt that customers who buy at this time will receive notifications via emails on the status of their shipments.

The notification reads thus: “Starlink is currently limited in your area and hopes to expand service soon. The timeline for service availability is dependent on regulatory approval. You will be notified via email prior to shipment once your Starlink is ready.”

“You will have seven days to confirm your order otherwise your deposit will be automatically cancelled and fully refunded.”

In 2021, TheCable reported that the company, which saw Nigeria as a critical market, was in talks with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to secure licences needed to launch.

One year later, Elon Musk, SpaceX founder, announced that Starlink, the company’s satellite internet service, has been approved in Nigeria.

According to SpaceX, Starlink was launched as a low-earth orbiting (LOE) constellation of satellites to provide low latency, high bandwidth internet to consumers across the globe.

A low latency network connection is one that generally experiences small delay times, while bandwidth refers to the amount of information that a connection to the internet can handle at a given time.

Starlink internet is said to work by sending information through the vacuum of space, where it travels much faster than in the fiber-optic cable.

The internet service was slated to commenced operations in Nigeria by the end of last year but was stalled by regulatory constraints.

In July, 2022, Musk had revealed via Twitter that Starlink would become active in Nigeria in August 2022, going further to ask potential users to begin ordering the starter kits at $99.