3G services lift Nigeria's telecom sector

Nigeria is experiencing a steady growth in the penetration of telecommunications services despite obvious glitches and network congestion.

The Nigerian Communications Commission recently announced that the installed capacity of telecommunications operators in Nigeria has reached 70 million lines, the number of connected lines has reached 51.9 million, with GSM firms accounting for 49 million of the lines and CDMA accounting for 2.4 million of the lines.
However of the connected lines, only 39 million are active, meaning about 10 million lines are dormant.

HANA's Jonah Iboma reported that another reason for the increase in network capacity is the entry of 3G mobile services into the economy.

MTN Nigeria, consequent upon getting the loan facility of $2billion (about N240billion) for the purpose of expanding its fast growing network., has commenced commercial 3G mobile telephony services in the country. Chief Executive Officer, Ahmad Farroukh said that MTN's third generation telephony would run on a High Speed Packet Access platform (HSPA) - which is technically mid-way between Third Generation and Fourth Generation mobile telephony and is technically referred to as 3.5G and represents an advanced form of Third Generation mobile telephony.

Speaking at the inauguration of the service last week, Corporate Services Executive of MTN Nigeria, Mrs. Amina oyagbola, said the company had been engaged in a lot of capacity increase to meet the requirements of the new service as well as "continue to build and consolidate additional capacity on our pre-existing 2.5 G platform".

Globacom Nigeria also inaugurated its 3G services christened as the 3G Plus last week to three cities (Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja) and to the local airports and international airports. Similar to the rollout of GSM services, 3G Plus services coverage will be at a selected places in the three cities of launch. In Lagos, services are in Victoria Island, Ajah, Lekki, ikoyi, marina, Apapa, Third Mainland bridge, Yaba, Ikeja, Surulere, Oota and the local and international airports.

Globacom promised to extend services to other parts of the country as soon as market conditions become clearer. Globacom obtained a license to operate the 3G services alongside three other firms, Alheri Engineering Limited, Celtel Nigeria, and MTN Nigeria after paying $150mn for the license in March this year.