MTN, Globacom Lead in Mobile Infrastructure Deployment, 21st Century Frontrunner in Fixed Infrastructure Deployment 

Emma Okonji

MTN Nigeria and Globacom Limited are leading in mobile infrastructure deployment in the telecoms sector, while 21st Century Technology is leading in the fixed infrastructure space, a recent statistics released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed

The statistics is in line with another statistics released last week by NCC, which discussed the level of infrastructure deployment in the telecom sector, ahead of 5G network rollout in Nigeria next month. 

The statistics on mobile infrastructure, which chronicled infrastructure deployment among mobile operators between 2020 and 2021, revealed as at December 2021, the total Base Stations owned by mobile telecom operating companies increased to 38,123 from 36,998 in December, 2020 across all states of the federation, representing an increase of 3.04 per cent from the previous year.

As at December 2021, the total on land fiber deployment was 47,128.7km as against 43,898.8km in year 2020. From the statistics, MTN topped the list of mobile network operators that deployed fibre on land, followed by Globacom.

As at December 2021, MTN deployed 14,612km fibre on land; GLO deployed 13,233km;  Airtel deployed 14,454km; EMTS, which trades as 9mobile, 4,650km and ntel deployed 180km fibre optic cable on land across the country, totaling 47,128.7km.

For submarine cable deployment, as at December,2021, the total submarine fiber deployment in kilometre was 27,818.3km as against 25,128.3km in year 2020. This is an increase of 10.7 per cent within the year under consideration .The submarine fiber deployment by four mobile operators, shows that MTN deployed 17,934km of submarine cable across the country, while Globacom deployed 9,800km; and Airtel deployed 14km and ntel deployed 70km, totaling 27,818.3km.

A further analysis of the fibre optics deployed illustrates that a total of 74,947km of fibre was deployed as at December, 2021 for both on-land and submarine. Of the total 74,947km that was deployed for both on-land and submarine deployment, 47,128.7km was on-land while 27,818.3km was submarine. MTN had the largest on-land and submarine deployment of 14,612km and 17,934km respectively as at December, 2021, followed by Globacom with 9,800km for submarine deployment and 13,233km on land respectively.

The statistics, which also showed microwave radio deployment among mobile network operators, explained that as at December 2021, mobile operators had deployed a total of 290,626km of microwave radio links as against the 289,424.99km of microwave radio links reported for 2020, which is an increment of 0.41 per cent.

For the fixed telephony operators’ year-end performance report on fixed infrastructure deployment as at December 2021, theNCC statistics showed that 21st Century Technology topped the list, followed by ipNX.

In addition to the four fixed network companies, which were reported in 2020, in 2021 four more companies were added, which include Inq. Digital (formerly Vodacom), Swift Telephone Network, Spectranet and Big Picture; making it a total of eight fixed network companies that were  presented in the statistics.

According to the NCC statistics, for Base Stations deployment, as at December 2021, a total of 165 base stations were recorded, indicating an increase of 57 per cent from 2020 where 105 base Stations were recorded.

For fibre optics deployment, as at December 2021, 21st Century deployed 9,000km on land and 33km submarine while ipNX deployed 2,076km on land. In total a sum of 11,077km was deployed for on-land fibre optics and 33km submarine fibre optics.

In the area of microwave radio deployment in the fixed network segment, 21st Century and IpNX, jointly reported 315km in microwave radio deployment for 2021, the NCC statistics said.