American business mogul and owner of the Starlink internet service Elon Musk has explained why the company has suspended new registrations in several urban centers in Africa.

In a statement, Musk said the internet provider is working to increase capacity in urban areas in Africa to meet demand.

However, he said areas outside urban areas still have good internet coverage.

“Starlink is working to increase internet capacity in densely populated urban areas in Africa as quickly as possible.

“Please note that there is still significant capacity outside city centers,” Musk said on X.

In an earlier alert, Starlink had informed users that there would be no new subscriptions to the residential plan in Nairobi due to network congestion.

It was further explained that there were many users of the service in Nairobi, which had led to congestion.

“Nairobi and neighboring areas are currently at grid capacity. This means there are too many users trying to access the Starlink service within Nairobi and there is currently not enough bandwidth to support additional residential or roaming customers,” Starlink said.

Areas affected by congestion also include areas neighboring Nairobi.

These include Thika, Kajiado, Kiambu, Naivasha, Ngong, Machakos and parts of Narok.

The Elon Musk-owned company recommended that those planning to subscribe leave their email addresses to be notified when the service is available again.

Starlink was launched in the country a few months ago and has caused disruption in the internet services industry in Kenya.

This has led to local providers recognizing the need to have Starlink controlled or distributed through their services.

Unlike other service providers, Starlink uses satellite to distribute its internet, while others use fiber optic cable.

Starlink boasts of high internet speeds compared to the others and is said to offer affordable subscription fees once you purchase its infrastructure.