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A recent report by broadband intelligence firm Ookla has revealed that while Zimbabwe’s Starlink internet speeds outperform Nigeria’s, they still lag behind several other African countries.
The satellite internet service, operated by SpaceX, delivers an average speed of 53.2 Mbps in Zimbabwe, higher than Nigeria’s 49.6 Mbps but significantly slower than front-runners like Botswana and Rwanda.
The Ookla report analysed Starlink’s performance across Sub-Saharan Africa, placing Zimbabwe in the mid-tier range. While Zimbabwean users enjoy faster speeds than Nigerians, they experience slower connectivity compared to countries such as Botswana(106.4 Mbps), Eswatini (86.2 Mbps), Sierra Leone, (77.8 Mbps) and Rwanda (85.5 Mbps).
By Gamuchirai Mapako
However, Zimbabwe’s speeds remain ahead of nations like South Sudan, Kenya, and Madagascar, where Starlink performs even slower.
Explaining the disparity to Nairametrics, a Spokesperson for Ookla attributed the slower speed to network congestion.
While Zimbabwe has fewer users than Nigeria likely reducing congestion its speeds are still not as high as those in Botswana or Rwanda, possibly due to Satellite availability, Regulatory and infrastructure challenges and User distribution.
The report also revealed that Starlink, delivers slower speeds in Nigeria compared to other African countries. Despite a recent hike in subscription fees, Nigeria’s average Starlink speed of 49.6 Mbps lags behind nations like Botswana.
“Nigeria is arguably Starlink’s biggest market in Africa, so its network could be more congested than that in Botswana. The number of users connected to the same satellite can impact speeds,” the spokesperson for Ookla.
However, Nigeria still outperforms many local terrestrial internet service providers (ISPs), despite the disparity.
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