By Adedapo Adesanya
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), Mr Umar Danbatta, has congratulated MTN and Mafab Communications, who emerged as the winners of the 5G spectrum auction, saying the country was ready to commit to technological developments.
The auction was conducted by the federal government at the Transcorp Hotel in Abuja yesterday.
A mock auction was carried out at the same venue to prepare the participants for the main event which was carried out successfully.
The NCC auctioned two slots in the 3.5 gigahertz (Ghz) 5G spectrum using the Ascending Clock Auction System.
MTN Nigeria, Mafab Communications Ltd, and Airtel Networks Ltd participated in the auctions but Airtel later dropped out of the bid.
The auction was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
The 5G Technology spectrum auction occurred in two stages: the main stage and the assignment stage. The first round of the auction started off with the three bidders at the reserved price of $197.4 million to $199, 374 million until it ended in round 10 at $263,017,050.77.
The assignment stage was to determine which operator takes a particular lot of the two lots that were auctioned.
Airtel Networks dropped off at the main stage, leaving MTN and Mafab Communications as the winners of the bid which ended with the total sum of $273.6 million per lot of 100 MHz TDD.
Mr Danbatta noted, “It is my pleasure to announce that at the end of the auction, Mafab Communications Limited and MTN Communications Nigeria Limited emerged as provisional licence winners.”
He added that that the commission followed due process for the bidding and that the winners were expected to pay on February 24, 2022, using the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) exchange rate at that time.
The Provisional Licence Winners are expected to pay the Winning Bid Price less the Intention-to-Bid Deposit, by February 24, 2022.
He congratulated the winners and thanked the government for its support and commitment to the deployment of 5G technology in Nigeria.
According to him, the 5G network will provide higher connection speed, mobility and capacity. It will also give low latency capacities to communications services in the country.
Mr Danbatta said the NCC would continue to deepen broadband penetration, protect the consumers and the smart deployment of infrastructure across the country.
Nigeria is hoping to have the widest 5G in Africa in 2022 and this development is a step in that direction.
The 3.5GHz spectrum auction represents a culmination of all the efforts at the international and national levels that have prepared Nigeria for this momentous leap forward, Mr Danbatta explained.
