The FactChecker

Elon Musk’s Starlink In Nigeria: Things you need to know

By Silas Jonathan

For most Nigerians, Glo, MTN, 9mobile, and Airtel are the top four choices for internet service in the country. For over 20 years, these service providers have shared the stage, monopolizing the internet service market with their distinctive but similar service provision.

However, now that Ryan Goodnight, SpaceX’s Starlink Market Access Director for Africa has announced in Abuja that ‘the Elon Musk’s owned company’ is seeking the necessary licenses to establish Starlink internet service in Nigeria, a new option might just be underway for Nigerians. Already, MTN and 9mobile are both reported to have lost over 1.37million data users, after Starlink revealed its intention to invest in the Nigerian internet service market.

While this news may appear to be the moral challenge that most Nigerians felt the existing service providers needed to up their game, there are still questions about whether Starlink will tackle the unstable internet service in Nigeria and if it will be a worthy game changer.

The Starlink Internet Service

Starlink is a satellite internet service provider operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX that provides satellite internet access. The company has been in existence since 2016, but was officially launched in 2018 to commence operations. Similar to the existing service providers in Nigeria like MTN, Glo, 9-mobile, Airtel, Starlink will also be set up to sell internet access to Nigerians.

Nevertheless, while people in urban areas have been the major internet users and as such, the main target customers, Starlink says it will target those in rural areas and individuals in locations where internet access has been inconsistent.

“Starlink is ideally suited for areas of the globe where connectivity has typically been a challenge,” the Starlink website reads. “Unbounded by traditional ground infrastructure, Starlink can deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable or completely unavailable.” A statement on the company’s website outlines.

Continue reading here

Fact Checks of the week

Is Dizeani’s bra truly the world’s most expensive?

On October 27th 2021, social media went agog with online reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was valuing some forfeited items of Nigeria’s embattled ex-petroleum minister, Deizani Alison-Madueke. What caused the online frenzies…

eNaira Scam Alert: CBN not disbursing digital currency to citizens

A WhatsApp message claims that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), under the directive of the Minister of Finance, is disbursing 50 million eNaira currency to citizens who are willing to register for the e-naira wallet. This is coming after…

Old report on homosexual marriage recirculated as breaking news

The argument around the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT) rights has been ongoing for a while and there are varying stances on this all over the world. While there is the movement to legalise same-sex marriage as a human right, some countries are…

Tip of The Week

#FakeNewsAlert

There’s precious little that we can do about the barrage of misinformation that we see daily, but there’s a lot we can do together if we learn to identify suspicious claims in the news and refrain from fuelling the fire by spreading them! Here are our top picks of likely-to-be-false news which [sadly] couldn’t be fact-checked.

CLAIM: The Applications for the Students Laptop Scheme 2021/22 Is Available

A WhatsApp message claims that applications for the students laptop scheme for 2021/2022 is now open to all students who cant afford a laptop of their own but are in need of a laptop in their level of education. The message also gave a clue on how to apply through a provided link attached at the bottom of the message.

Questions to ask yourself: Is there a scheme like this? Which government agency is responsible for giving out the Laptops? Has the agency made such announcements? Which credible platform has published this claim?

What you should do: Verify before passing this message on.