Amazon’s satellite broadband venture, Project Kuiper, now rebranded as Amazon Leo, has received regulatory approval to enter Nigeria’s internet market, marking a significant development in the country’s connectivity landscape. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted Amazon Leo a seven-year landing permit, paving the way for commercial operations to begin this year.
The permit, dated 28 February 2026, authorises Amazon Leo to operate its space segment in Nigeria as part of a global constellation of up to 3,236 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. The NCC said the approval is consistent with international best practices and reflects Nigeria’s commitment to opening its satellite communications sector to next-generation broadband providers.
With the approval in place, Amazon Leo is positioned to deliver high-speed satellite internet across Nigeria, introducing direct competition to Starlink, which is currently the dominant LEO satellite internet provider in the country.
The landing permit provides Amazon with the regulatory certainty required to invest in ground infrastructure such as satellite gateways and user terminals, forge local partnerships with telecom operators and service providers, and pursue enterprise contracts with businesses and government agencies. More broadly, the move signals a shift in Nigeria’s broadband market, ending Starlink’s de facto monopoly and setting the stage for a more competitive LEO satellite ecosystem that could influence pricing, accelerate service deployment and raise performance standards across the sector.
An Amazon spokesperson for Africa said:
“We don’t have any information to share beyond what is publicly available at this time, but we’ll be in touch if we announce anything.”
Under the NCC approval, Amazon Leo is authorised to provide three categories of satellite services in Nigeria. These include Fixed Satellite Service, which supports broadband connectivity between satellites and fixed ground stations such as homes, enterprises, telecom base stations and government facilities. The permit also covers Mobile Satellite Service, designed for portable and low-power terminals used in scenarios such as emergency communications, asset tracking and maritime safety. In addition, Earth Stations in Motion are approved, enabling high-speed satellite broadband for moving platforms including aircraft, ships, trains and vehicles.
Collectively, the scope of the permit indicates that Amazon Leo intends to operate as a multi-segment connectivity platform rather than focusing solely on rural broadband. Its target market spans households, enterprises, mobility solutions and critical national infrastructure.
Amazon Leo’s Nigerian operations will utilise the Ka-band frequency spectrum, operating uplinks between 27.5 and 30.0 GHz and downlinks across 17.7–18.6 GHz and 18.8–20.2 GHz. Ka-band is essential for high-throughput satellite systems, offering significantly greater capacity than older frequency bands. While Ka-band is more susceptible to rain fade, modern LEO constellations mitigate this through adaptive modulation, power control and intelligent routing. The NCC approval includes 100 MHz per channel, balancing performance and affordability, with standard terminals expected to deliver speeds of up to 400 Mbps for consumer and enterprise users.
Nigeria remains a strategic market for satellite broadband providers. With a population exceeding 200 million, mobile broadband penetration of 50.58 per cent as of November 2025, and more than 23 million people still unserved or underserved, demand for alternative connectivity solutions remains strong. Low-latency LEO satellite services can support real-time applications such as video conferencing, cloud computing, online gaming and financial trading, all of which are increasingly important to Nigeria’s digital economy. For enterprises, satellite broadband offers viable connectivity for telecom backhaul, oil and gas operations, mining sites, ports and remote industrial facilities where fibre deployment is impractical.
Starlink currently leads Nigeria’s LEO satellite market with around 66,000 subscribers, making it the country’s second-largest internet service provider. Amazon Leo’s entry introduces a well-capitalised rival backed by Amazon’s global scale, logistics capabilities, cloud integration through AWS, and strong enterprise relationships. Amazon’s partnership with Vanu in late 2025 to expand rural connectivity in Southern Africa further signals its intention to leverage local collaborations as part of its market entry strategy.
The NCC’s decision aligns with Nigeria’s broader goal of diversifying its connectivity infrastructure and attracting global technology investment. Satellite broadband is increasingly viewed as a complement to fibre and mobile networks rather than a replacement. Amazon Leo’s success in Nigeria will depend on effective local partnerships, timely deployment of ground infrastructure, compliance with spectrum regulations, and competitive pricing and terminal availability. As competition intensifies, consumers and businesses are likely to benefit from faster speeds, wider coverage and a more resilient national connectivity ecosystem.
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