The investment profile of Nigeria’s largest telecommunications firm, MTN may have hit over $13 billion (N2 Trillion) on fixed assets and facilities nationwide in its last 13 years of operation in the country.
MTN, which is warming up for license renewal by 2016 in Nigeria, according to statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), currently controls 45 per cent market share and has 58.2 million subscribers. In a document obtained by The Guardian, the telecommunications firm informed that its leadership position in the area of network investment, coverage, expansion and state-of-the-art infrastructure is evident in the huge investment plunged into the Nigerian economy.
As such, the document disclosed that MTN now has the most expansive network coverage, spread across 3,649 cities, town and villages in all 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). “MTN also provides network coverage to 74.56 per cent of Nigeria’s land mass, while about 87.15 per cent of the population has access to MTN services. “Today, MTN is Nigeria’s leading ICT company, employing over 5, 800 staff, with Nigerians accounting for 99 per cent of this number. MTN operates an extensive distribution chain with 78 trade partners and an information distribution chain of over 450 walk-in centres across Nigeria,” the document informed.
The firm, through its Corporate Social Responsibility arm, the MTN Foundation, funded by up to one per cent Profit After Tax from MTNN claimed to have invested over N10 billion in carrying out projects in 341 projects sites in the 36 states of the country and the FCT. Meanwhile, a100 gigabit-per-second fibre optic network is being built in Nigeria for the MTN Group. Connectivity company, Alcatel-Lucent, said it is building a 100G DWDM/OTN network for MTN Nigeria by using its 1, 830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) system.
MTN plans on using the extra capacity to offer wholesale services to other providers in the region. The firm said its network covers 88.8 per cent of Nigeria’s land mass, and that it plans deploying the 100G network while re using existing 10G optical assets to preserve its past investments. “MTN realized we needed to upgrade our network to meet customer expectations for ultra-broadband connectivity and high reliability within Nigeria’s very competitive marketplace. “We wanted a state of the art solution that met three main criteria: increased network reliability, a high degree of scalability to prepare the network for 400G and beyond, and preservation of our existing 10G investment”, said Chief Technical Officer of MTN Nigeria, Lynda Saint-Nwafor, in a statement recently.
Furthermore, the NCC stressed that the mobile technology accounts for 57.9 per cent of all Internet traffic in the country. It noted that the number of Internet users has expanded at an average yearly rate of around 30 per cent in recent years. In 2013, at a forum in Lagos, the telecommunications operators claimed to have provided 64 per cent mobile coverage for the country and contributed in form of taxes and levies about N160 billion to government coffers.
