Many of us find it difficult to picture a future without fast, unrestricted Internet access. Others have even suggested that, like access to clean water and electricity, it should be considered a basic human right.
Yet, as of January 2023, only 64.4% of the world population is online. The majority of those linked live in Asia and Europe.
Africa is ranked third. Nonetheless, access varies greatly across the continent. In Southern Africa, around 66% of people utilise the Internet. East Africa has 26%, whereas Central Africa has just 24%. Individuals in rural areas have significantly less access than those in metropolitan areas across the continent.
Internet connection, in many ways, opens up the globe. It has the potential to entertain, educate, facilitate payments, and even strengthen democracy.
That is why advancements in bringing Internet access to Africans are worthy of celebration. The American business SpaceX, which develops and launches spacecraft and communication satellites, stated in January 2023 that its Starlink service will be accessible in Nigeria. This was the continent’s first. It is now accessible in Rwanda as well.
Starlink is an Internet service delivered through satellite. Later this year, it will be pushed out across the continent, notably in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, and Tanzania. (There has been no announcement about a South African launch.)
Starlink is a network of thousands of satellites located close to the Earth – about 550km from the planet’s surface
This might be a significant step in closing Africa’s connection gaps, which have formed as a result of weak digital infrastructure and the high costs of investing in fiber-optic cables or mobile phone towers, especially in rural and distant regions. The United Nations has a policy in place to provide universal access across Africa by 2030, but this will require novel techniques.
One such innovation is Starlink. Because all of its customers use the same infrastructure, there is little need for installing mobile phone towers or deploying fibre optic cable on land.
What is Starlink?
Starlink is a network of hundreds of satellites that deliver broadband Internet connection near to the Earth – around 550 kilometres from the planet’s surface.
Satellites are, of course, already employed for Internet access. A typical Internet satellite, on the other hand, is a single geostationary object whose location in orbit is fixed in regard to the Earth. Because these satellites are more than 35 000 kilometres from Earth, it takes a lengthy time for the signal to reach the end user. Anybody who has attempted to use the Internet in a remote region knows that the longer a signal goes, the worse it becomes, thus typical Internet satellites are sluggish and unreliable. They are unable to support activities such as live streaming, online gaming, and video calls.
Starlink’s low-Earth-orbit satellites can communicate with one another and relay signals, resulting in fast, stable Internet access. There are a lot of them: on February 17, 2023, SpaceX said that it had launched 3 981 satellites in total, with 3 639 of them now operating.
The business claims that it can launch its own satellites on demand and upgrade them with the newest technology as needed, which increases their reliability.
Most of Africa’s Internet connectivity is now delivered via mobile, wireless Internet, with signals transmitted from land-based towers. This provides less coverage and is slower than satellite Internet.
The price of Starlink is one source of worry. For example, FiberOne, a broadband Internet operator in Nigeria, was offering Internet speeds of up to 500Mbit/s in early February 2023. The installation charge was around R1 280, and the monthly membership was approximately R4 000. However, in Nigeria, Starlink costs around R11 000 for the kit and installation, followed by a monthly membership price of approximately R780.
In the long run, Starlink is less expensive than both fibre optic and mobile Internet providers. Yet, with a monthly salary of less than R1 100, can the ordinary rural Nigerian home afford it? Since that typical earnings in most rural and remote portions of Africa are equally low, there is a possibility that Starlink’s targeted African consumers will be unable to access the service.
Applications for research
Apart from these reservations, there is little question that faster Internet can move Africa ahead. Notwithstanding its difficulties, mobile, wireless internet has been recognised with significantly furthering Africa’s technological development. Services like Starlink have the potential to accelerate growth in a variety of industries. They include education, democracy and government engagement, catastrophe risk reduction and mitigation, health, and agriculture.
As a planetary and space science researcher whose work includes, among other things, the use of satellite data for monitoring and modelling in geology, I am particularly interested in how these satellites could be used for tasks other than internet access, such as remote sensing and Earth observations. I think that the launch of Starlink in Africa will bring the region into a new era of technical progress.
For example, satellite photos may provide agricultural production statistics, allowing farmers to make more informed decisions about irrigation, fertilisation, and harvesting. They also enable broad and effective monitoring of reservoir levels, as well as more openness about how much water is available, allowing for early warnings of water shortages and uniform data across nations with shared water resources.
Governments, researchers, and companies can purchase access to specialised Starlink satellites known as Swarm to collect data for these types of initiatives. Because of the sheer quantity and speed of Starlink’s satellites, they can collect a large amount of data fast and provide regular updates. The launch of Starlink in Africa provides an excellent chance for African scientists, governments, and enterprises to interact. The Discussion
