Giant telecommunications company MTN Nigeria has reportedly allocated more than $120 million towards the expansion of 5G coverage in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Modupe Kadri in an exclusive interview with Nairametrics.
Mr. Kadri stated that these investments boosted the 5G coverage of the population from 3% in 2022 when it launched to 11% in 2023. He further noted that the government would need to urgently address the forex situation in the country and institute fair pricing to encourage further investments.
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In his words,
“Last year, we increased our population coverage of 5G from 3% to 11%. That investment alone is worth $120 million. We made those investments because that’s what is required to build resilience or to carry the sort of traffic that we can see on our network”.
MTN has continued to deepen its investments in 5G in Nigeria, noting that the strength with which it expanded 2G, 3G, and 4G, would be combined to expand 5G coverage across the country in major population centers in the coming months.
In 2022, the telco strategically partnered with Ericsson to upgrade the core network in Nigeria. According to MTN, building on existing partnerships for cloud-native core network deployment with Ericsson would ensure the readiness of MTN Nigeria’s network infrastructure to enable 5G standalone in the future.
It further noted that the 5G services can bring about unique sustainable development initiatives for agriculture, energy, financial inclusion, and security, among others.
MTN believes that the 5G technology will revolutionize the way we live and communicate across industries. With the speed 5G offers, users will be able to experience the internet with low latency, void of lag, which will make virtual interactions more real.
In the latest industry data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), 5G connections in the country increased to 2.3 million in December 2023. This represents 1.04% of the country’s total active subscriptions for telephone services, which stood at 224.7 million of the year.
While the three telecom operators have deployed 5G infrastructure across major cities in the country, the service providers are seeing slow adoption due to the device limitation.
The Global System for Mobile Telecommunications Association (GSMA) has said that advanced markets would focus on promoting 5G adoption even as North America, East Asia, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets are leading the way in 5G adoption.
The telecoms advocacy body said globally, 5G will overtake 4G in 2029 to become the dominant mobile technology. It noted that it is significant for scaling mobile’s contribution to the SDGs as research shows 5G subscribers make greater and more frequent use of digital services on their smartphones, compared to 4G users.