For enterprises operating across Africa, the internet is often a study in fragility. Between recurring fibre cuts, unstable power grids, and the recent spate of undersea cable severances, the concept of “always-on” connectivity has historically been more of an aspiration than a reality.
Now, NTT DATA—the global digital infrastructure powerhouse—is stepping in to bridge that gap. The company has announced an aggressive acceleration of its Starlink rollout, targeting the deployment of over 1,000 satellite terminals across the continent within the next six months.
The move comes shortly after NTT DATA signed an agreement to become an authorised reseller for SpaceX’s satellite service. Kenya has emerged as the primary testbed for this initiative; the company reports it has already completed nearly 100 installations in the country, with these sites now live and operational.
The Integrator Strategy
While any consumer can technically buy a Starlink kit, NTT DATA isn’t targeting the average home user. Their play is strictly B2B (Business-to-Business). They are positioning Starlink as a critical redundancy layer for sectors that simply cannot afford downtime: banking, retail, logistics, mining, and emergency services.
The logic here is integration. Rather than just handing a client a dish and a router, NTT DATA is incorporating Starlink into clients’ existing network architectures (whether that is fibre or wireless). This creates a unified network where Starlink acts as a seamless failover or, in remote locations, the primary link.
“Connectivity has become business critical and the cost of downtime is now too high for most organisations,” says Ndung’u Njoroge, General Manager for Digital Network Services at NTT DATA in East Africa. “We deploy what works best for each organisation, whether it’s a bank looking for secure redundancy, a retail chain needing stable backup, or a remote site that has never had reliable internet before.”
Solving the Supply Chain Bottleneck
One of the hurdles for Starlink adoption in enterprise environments has been hardware logistics and support. NTT DATA claims to have solved this by locally stocking hardware in Kenya. According to the company, this reduces delivery times significantly, allowing clients to go from signed contract to live connectivity in just a couple of days—a metric that matters when a remote branch is offline.
Furthermore, they are addressing the “what happens when it breaks” question. The service includes a commitment to replace faulty hardware within 48 hours, a Service Level Agreement (SLA) that standard consumer plans generally lack.
The Plans and Pricing Models
NTT DATA is offering Starlink priority plans that range between 1TB and 6TB of high-speed monthly data. Recognising that capital expenditure (Capex) can be a barrier, they have introduced three procurement models:
- Outright Purchase: Buying the kit upfront.
- Lease-to-Own: A short-term leasing model.
- Bundled Packages: A subscription combining hardware and managed services.
With active deployments planned for other authorised African markets, NTT DATA is effectively betting that Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites are no longer just a niche solution for the wilderness, but a standard component of the modern African enterprise stack.
