After December 31, 2025, more than 66,000 Nigerian Starlink customers run the risk of having their internet access banned if they do not finish a required biometric upgrade.
This is because the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has published a new directive requiring all telecom and internet service users to regularize their identity details to help improve identity verification and security throughout the ecosystem.
The new requirement were first published in August 2025 and the scope has been extended to satellite internet users as well.
The NCC reportedly sent out the order in a letter dated August 19, 2025, with a deadline of “3 months from date of directive (i.e. November 19, 2025).” On November 17, 2025, an extension was approved, moving the final date until December 31, 2025.
On Monday, December 29, 2025, Starlink issued subscribers an email confirming the requirement and stating that the verification process takes “less than two minutes.”
It stated that subscribers who do not provide their information by the deadline of December 31 will have their service suspended, adding that reactivation will depend on the subscriber’s local network capacity, thus some users might not be able to restore service if their area is already at full capacity.
On Starlink’s availability checker, neighbourhoods including Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lagos Island, Ikeja, Surulere, Lekki, and nearby estates in Lagos sometimes show up as “sold out” or “at capacity,” forcing potential customers to sign up for a deposit-required waitlist.
Similar circumstances can be found in Abuja, where a number of districts are currently only accepting waitlist deposits rather than new residential activations due to capacity.
A request for comments was not answered by Starlink.
The NCC’s December 15, 2023, directive to mobile network operators under the NIN–SIM linkage programme, which mandated that subscribers’ NINs be matched with current SIM registration records, including fingerprints and facial images, in cooperation with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), is closely reflected in the policy. The action was intended to strengthen national security, prevent identity-related fraud, and establish a more trustworthy national subscriber database.
The final compliance deadline for the mobile sector rollout was September 14, 2024, and it was implemented in phases. After that date, operators were told to completely block any unconfirmed lines. Over 153 million SIMs were successfully connected to validated NINs by the end of the exercise, according to the NCC, which claimed a 96% compliance rate.
The Commission established a regulatory precedent that is currently being applied to satellite internet providers like Starlink when it declared in August 2025 that all unlawfully registered SIMs had been deleted from Nigeria’s networks.
