Billionaire Tech entrepreneur and MaySpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced the regulatory clearance in Africa via Twitter a few hours after tweeting that Starlink had been approved in the Philippines, the first country in Southeast Asia to grant it permission for its services.
Starlink’s regulatory approvals mean the low Earth orbit network “is now licensed on all seven continents,” SpaceX’s Twitter account added.
Launched by SpaceX, Musk’s space exploration company, Starlink provides high-speed, low-latency broadband internet across the globe. It enables video calls, online gaming, streaming, and other high data rate activities.
Following Musk’s tweet about being licensed to operate in Nigeria and Mozambique, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) confirmed it had licensed Starlink
“Starlink approved by Nigeria and Mozambique,” he simply wrote.
The NCC stated that the company received “the International Gateway license and Internet Service Provider license, and will be trading as Starlink Internet Services Nigeria Ltd.”
The International Gateway and the ISP licenses have 10-year and 5-year tenure respectively. Both licenses take effect from May 2022 and may be renewed after the expiration.
Musk’s announcement comes days after he assured a Twitter user that the satellite service would spread to Africa soon.
“Starlink will serve everywhere on Earth that we’re legally allowed to serve,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
Starlink dispatched thousands of satellite stations to war-torn Ukraine in March. Its coverage map currently shows plans to start providing services to Africa and the majority of regions where the network is currently unavailable by 2023.