“In Kenya itself, our customers have seen average latency drop from 120 ms down to 26 ms over the weekend!”
These were the words of Jimmy Grewal, managing director at Elcome and an authorized reseller of Starlink dishes to commercial ships, immediately after Starlink activated a Point of Presence (PoP) in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Starlink ground station in Nairobi, the company’s second in Africa after Nigeria, came online at the end of January 2025. Its main objective was to mitigate latency challenges that the satellite-based internet service provider often faces.
After the Nairobi PoP went live, latency for many users has dropped significantly: from 120-150 milliseconds to as low as 30 milliseconds.
PoPs act as internet gateways. They relay user data from satellites to major internet exchange points (IXPs) and are located near high-speed fiber networks to minimize data travel time.
Starlink currently operates 37 similar ground stations worldwide.
A report confirms that the activation of Starlink’s Nairobi PoP significantly improved the user experience across East Africa. Deployment led to an enhancement in both upload speeds and reduced latency for countries in the region.
For example, Kenya’s upload speeds more than doubled from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025, hitting 14.85 Mbps. Rwanda, Malawi, and Zambia also saw considerable gains, with their upload speeds increasing by over 60%.
According to the report, in terms of latency, “During Q1 2025, Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda led the continent in median multi-server latency at 53ms, 60ms, and 67ms, respectively.”
Kenya and Rwanda experienced drops of 81% and 70%, respectively, in multi-server latency.
However, despite notable improvements in Q1 2025, Starlink latency in the region remains higher than that of terrestrial networks. To be particular, a few countries like Madagascar and Sierra Leone are still experiencing very high latency.
Nairobi PoP Enhanced Capacity
The PoP launch in Nairobi was important to enhance capacity. In late 2024, the Elon Musk-owned company paused new account registrations in Nairobi and its surrounding areas due to network capacity issues.
After a seven-month freeze, new subscriptions resumed in June.
While Starlink struggles in terms of latency against terrestrial networks, its overall user experience is better. Ookla’s report shows that Starlink’s satellite internet services are two to four times faster than other ISPs in Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia.
The speed difference is less than double in a few spots, like Ghana, Rwanda, and Madagascar.
Read: Kenya’s Best ISP: Faiba Claims the Crown for Fastest Internet
Despite the improvements, the number of satellite internet subscriptions in Kenya is dropping.
