Airtel Confirms Intention to Bid for 5G Slot in Nigeria in December

By Dipo Olowookere

Airtel Africa Plc has confirmed that it would partake in the second 5G auction to be conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in December 2022.

A few days ago, the telecommunications industry regulatory disclosed that it would offer two additional slots in the 3.5 Gigahertz (GHz) spectrum band for the deployment of the 5G network.

This followed the first exercise held earlier in the year, which had MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communication as winners of the bids.

The NCC said in the auction coming up in the last month of the year, the two slots for the 3.5 GHz spectrum auction would go for at least $273.6 million each, amounting to $547.2 million.

“The spectrum reserve price (RP) is the minimum price for one slot of 100MHz TDD for a 10-year licence tenure fixed at $273,600,000.00 or its equivalent in Naira at the prevailing Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rates at the time of the auction, according to the memorandum,” the NCC said.

Addressing analysts at a conference call on Thursday, the group chief executive of Airtel Africa, Mr Segun Ogunsanya, said the company would participate in the exercise.

He expressed hopes that Airtel Nigeria, which will bid for the spectrum, would get one of the slots to compete in the 5G market.

However, Mr Ogunsanya said Airtel would propose an amount it feels is fair for the slot, noting that the fee should be paid in local currency, Naira, and if the NCC insists on getting the fee in foreign currency, it would be at the official exchange rate on the day of the payment.

Business Post reports that in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the FX market on Wednesday, the Naira closed flat at N441.67/$1 and at the black market, it was unchanged at N765/$1.

Since NCC sold the 5G slots in February, MTN has launched its 5G network in selected locations, while Mafab is yet to roll out its 5G network but got the approval of NCC for a five-month rollout extension, which ends December 31, 2022.

On November 15, 2022, the regulator will “hold a public consultation regarding the draft information memorandum (IM) on the spectrum sale to take place a month later.

“This is in line with the commission’s participatory rule-making process for the communications sector, to allow stakeholders and interested parties to review and comment on the draft IM before the final document is published,” the memorandum further said.