MTN’s interest in another 5G licence rattles telecom industry
By Chisom Nwatu
Leading telecommunication company, MTN Nigeria, has shown interest to buy another 5G licence from the Nigerian government, sending the telecom industry astir.
The opposing voices from other telcos are hinged on the fact that MTN had already secured a 5G licence for $273.6 million from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) months ago.
The telcos find in hard to understand why MTN should again show interest in joining other them to bid for another 5G network licence following NCC’s recent announcement of plans to sell two additional slots in the 3.5 Gigahertz (GHz) spectrum band for the deployment of 5G network in the country.
Each licence is reserved for $273.60 million, translating to $547.2 million in total, according to the Draft Information Memorandum published on the NCC website.
Other telecommunications operators have requested the NCC to ignore MTN’s request.
The representatives of telcos like Airtel argued that the move by MTN goes against the spirit of competition in the market for one telecom firm to hold more than one licence when other players are yet to get any of the licences.
Therefore, they objected to MTN’s request to be allowed to participate in the upcoming 5G licence auction in December 2022.
Ubale Maska, executive commissioner, Technical Services, NCC, speaking on the development, said MTN’s request isn’t a first in the telco industry as there are precedents and Nigeria is an open market.
Also, Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of NCC, said all requests will be given due consideration and final feedback made before the auction.
“The motive is not to generate money for the federal government. It has nothing to do with the revenue we are going to generate. The price was determined by the last auction. We will always make reference to the reserve price no matter when the auction was had,” Danbatta said.
He added that more comments are invited, and the auction process isn’t to generate revenue for the government.
Nigeria has four 5G licences, two of which have been auctioned to MTN and Mafab Communication and are yet to be commercialized.
MTN has, however, explained that it won Lot B in 2021, and NCC is currently auctioning Lot A and C. The telco’s position is that OEMs manufacturing the 5G equipment often produce for two lots, either A and B or B and C. MTN argued that having a licence for two lots provides it with the necessary equipment for effective deployment, making the service cost cheaper for consumers.