‘On Wednesday, during a keynote speech Elon Musk gave at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk announced a major update on the rollout timeline for his low-Earth orbit high-speed broadband internet service, Starlink: “In August we should have global connectivity in everywhere except the poles”’, reports Samuel Nwite

Ladies and gentlemen, a new cambrian moment is here for digital entrepreneurial capitalism and rural Africa is going to benefit. Reading the report from Samuel, you can see that he is cutting prices in multiples. Please if you are not building because there is no internet connectivity, I am telling you to begin to build. This is going to change the market and bring a new basis of competition.

From state monopolies (land lines) to CDMA, from CDMA to GSM, and possibly, we will move from GSM to satellite broadband. If that happens, the market cap of most telcos in Africa would be recalibrated. I am not telling you to call your stock broker to dump your holdings, but watch the price point Starlink  arrives at, because as he noted in that statement, he wants to unleash $30 billion into the sector.

If he does, that would be an asymmetric playbook in the likes of Jio, with global flavours! Yet, the execution goes beyond technology: national regulators could even decide how all plays out. Be watching for GSM-led satellite last mile argument over what many would desire which is unbounded agency module, with or without GSM license.

Elon Musk Announces August for Starlink Launch

On Wednesday, during a keynote speech Elon Musk gave at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk announced a major update on the rollout timeline for his low-Earth orbit high-speed broadband internet service, Starlink.

SpaceX has increased its push to provide affordable satellite internet globally, amidst competition with Amazon.com subsidiary Kuiper, OneWeb – a collapsed satellite operator rescued by the British government and India’s Bharti Group. Musk said Starlink will launch its global satellite internet services in August, a month earlier than previously scheduled.

“In August we should have global connectivity in everywhere except the poles,” Musk said through video from California during his keynote at the Mobile World Congress, MWC, the telecoms industry’s largest annual gathering, which is being held in Barcelona. This means that the launch is nearly ready.

Starlink President Gwynne Shotwell, had last week said that Starlink would go global this September, Musk’s announcement means the deadline has just moved up a few weeks.

Besides the announcement of the global launch, Musk said Starlink will need $30 billion to execute its satellite tasks and steer the company to profitable business. He talked about plans to augment existing investments that include over 1,500 satellites shot into space.

“With Falcon 9 we achieved the most efficient reusability for any rocket to date,” said Musk. Some rockets are slated to fly 20 or even 30 times. “When you look at the cost of the rocket, you’ve got 60% of the cost in the first stage, and about 10% in the faring,” Musk explained. “So this is really a very good number for a rocket,” he added, referencing the forthcoming Starlink prototype’s space missions in comparison to Saturn V rockets. “It’s about 3.5 to 1 ratio of oxygen to fuel […] instead of helium with the Falcon 9.” Helium is expensive, so the cost of propellant for Starship will be comparable to the cost of a Falcon 9, but with full reusability, Musk explained.

The cost of reusing a Starship will cost a little less than $2 million, said Musk during the keynote. The Starship will also see orbital refueling primarily with oxygen. It’s “the first system that will be capable of building a base on the moon, and a city on Mars.”

“We’re hoping to do our first orbital launch attempt [for Starship] in the next few months,” said Musk. He also said the Starship’s orbital launch site will be ready in the next month or so. “SpaceX is trying to extend the scope of consciousness beyond Earth, and Tesla is trying to ensure that life is good on Earth in terms of sustainable energy,” he added, summarizing his intentions with his companies. “That future includes expanding the scope and scale of consciousness. We don’t really know what the answers are, or what questions to ask.”

He mentioned “two quite significant partnerships with major country telcos” that could help the SpaceX division plug the gaps in fifth-generation mobile and cellular networks.

“This is helpful because a number of countries have requirements that — in order to receive a 5G license, you also have to provide rural coverage. So sometimes urban customers end up subsidizing rural customers,” he said.

Starlink, an array of low-orbit satellites offering high-speed, low-latency connectivity, is already offering a trial service and aims to cover the world. It is operating in about a dozen countries, adding more every month, with Musk forecasting that total customer numbers would reach half a million over the next 12 months, from the 69,000 it has now.

Musk said the company plans to reduce the cost of its services to enable affordability, since many of its Starlink users will be rural dwellers. The terminal costs is expected to be reduced from over $1000 to $300-500 in the next 12 months.

“Our customers will very often live in remote regions. Sometimes they’re up in a cabin up in the mountain that doesn’t even have electricity!” So SpaceX is designing the system so it doesn’t need a lot of maintenance, and it is intended to go online in just five minutes. “You should [be able to] point it at the sky and plug it in,” he said.

Musk noted that Starlink satellites orbit Earth at around 500 km, whereas geosynchronous satellites are at about 1,000 km.

However, huge concern lies on the profitability of the business as $300 and $100 satellite internet is considered unaffordable for rural dwellers who will make up large number of Starlink customers. Experts believe it may deter investors from putting their money in Starlink.

Join me to welcome ZedX Global Services Limited to Tekedia Mini-MBA. ZedX is an “Innovative Investment Company with a goal to deliver high returns on investments for its clients while remaining within ethical boundaries and ensuring that it protects the environment in all it does”. As an Institute, we are honoured for the opportunity to co-learn and co-advance with this market leader.

People of the world, more companies are invited to Tekedia Institute- begin here.

It is business for the banks and they are doing what they have to do: make money. But for the national oil corporation, NNPC, I am not sure what to write here. Yes, borrowing money from banks to buy shares in Dangote Refinery when you could have borrowed the same money to fix the four refineries you have built, but unable to maintain, seems odd.  But what can we say since there are paid commenters who are now employed by the government to discredit any critical commentary (thanks Senator Shehu Sani for that revelation). I take you to that African proverb: “nwa nnunu bere na ikwubo ka no n’ala” [a bird which flies from the ground to the anti-hill might have thought that it had left the ground, but when you look critically, it is still on the ground].

Nigerian state oil company NNPC has signed term sheets with Dangote Group to buy a 20% stake in the company’s oil refinery under construction in Lagos state, NNPC’s director said on Tuesday.

Mele Kyari said NNPC is in talks with banks to borrow on the back of its cash flow to buy the stake in the 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery. He declined to put a dollar figure on the stake, but said the refinery is worth an estimated $19 billion.

As Chinua Achebe will write, proverbs are like the kola nuts upon which words are eaten. Nigeria, good luck investing in Dangote Refinery. But remember the new market regulations: Dangote Refinery by law should not offer you a different price than it offers to other customers under the same conditions just because you are an investor. If not, I will call Access Bank to waive fees on my bank transactions as I am a mini-investor! 

Simply, it does not make sense to me why we need to follow this borrow-invest path. A better playbook would have been this: place an order and get a bulk discount once the refinery is running. Of course, we defer to our leaders as they have data which drives these decisions.

Meanwhile, congrats to Dangote Refinery: it is already winning. Playing as I wrote in my book – The Dangote System. It is called Conglomerate Tax: citizens and nations pay huge penalties for conglomerates to serve them!