MTN Acquires Additional 800MHz Spectrum

MTN Nigeria has announced its acquisition of an additional 10MHZ spectrum in the 800MHz band from Intercellular Nigeria Limited.

This was disclosed in a press release by the company, where it was also revealed that the transaction had been signed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and the frequency had been assigned to MTN Nigeria.

The 800MHz spectrum is a technology developed to enhance service delivery and also overcome the challenges and costs of digging trenches and right of way issues.

The CDMA technology operating in the 800MHz band is capable of full mobility, which means easy connectivity.

MTN acquired its first 10MHz from Visafone in 2019 and the telecom company has been able to use the technology to expand its 4G LTE services in the country since then.

With this additional spectrum, MTN expects that customer experience will significantly improve in line with its commitment to deliver excellent service quality to its subscribers.

While commenting on the acquisition, the CEO of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, said that the acquisition would deepen their broadband penetration in the country and that the additional resources would help them provide better internet connectivity.

Based on the most recent data released by the NBS, MTN has the highest number of mobile subscribers with over 80.76 million mobile subscribers as at Q4 2020.

This represents 39% of the total number of mobile subscribers in the period.

MTN also led in terms of the number of internet subscribers in Q4 2020.

A total of 65.36 million people were subscribed to MTN’s internet within the period.

This represents 42% of the total market size.