This August makes it 20 years of telecommunications revolution in the country. This revolution stirred up many changes in the history of the country. Notably, Nigeria moved from meager 400,000 NITEL lines in 2001 to 297 million connected telephone lines within the space of two decades. This feat, among others, made the sector a ‘star performer’ even in a lockdown. ADEYEMI ADEPETUN chronicles the journey.
While Econet and MTN met the payment deadline, CIL failed to fulfill the obligation; and its license became encumbered – or forfeited. M-Tel, however, had its license awarded to it on a platter – being a government company at the time. These players paid a $20 million non-refundable deposit to show their readiness for the Nigerian market.In the process, the frequency that was assigned to CIL in 2001 was encumbered, but MTN and Econet got the digital mobile licenses. Against expectation of a poor run in Nigeria, the operators were able to roll out about two million lines in the first year of their operations.
It is interesting to mention that while there are 297 million connected lines, 187.3 million are active. This has pushed Nigeria’s teledensity to 98.28 per cent. The country can also boast of 140 million Internet users. In terms of fibre optics deployment, as at last December, MTN had deployed 14,612km on land and 15,244km submarine fibre optics; Globacom deployed 13,306km on land and 9,800km submarine fibre optics; 21st Century deployed 8,050km on land and 33km fibre optics, while ipNX deployed 1956km on land fibre optics. This makes an aggregate of 37,924km of on-land Fibre Optics deployed as at 2020.
In 2019, the contribution to GDP grew again to 10.6 per cent and in 2020, as at second quarter, it climbed to 14.3 per cent, representing N2.3 trillion, whereas the entire contribution of ICT to GDP within the same period was 17.5 per cent.Despite these contributions to the economy, gaps and challenges remain. Nigerians are still grappling with poor quality of service . The NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Prof.
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