MAP > Internet Providers in Nigeria

Nigeria has among largest telecom markets in the Africa continent, well supported by second-largest economy on continent after South Africa nation. During the year 2016, economy went into recession through the GDP growth returned in the year 2017. Given potential for further development, the telecom sector does attract considerable foreign investment. The market liberalization measures in the recent years have been able to lead to the hundreds of the companies, many of them being small and localized, being set up to offer a wide range of the telecom as well as value added services.

Mobile sector has been able to benefit from the market competition, and the wider deployment of the LTE technologies that have in turn supported the operator revenue development as well as encouraged adoption of the mobile broadband among the subscribers. Other than key mobile network operators, there have been some additional players that are operating under the unified licensing regime. The regulator has been able to license 4 regional infrastructure companies, to be able to build the national broadband network as well as offer the capacity to all the service providers on the non-discriminatory, the open access as well as the price regulated basis.

The additional three InfraCo licenses that have been expected to get awarded by the mid-2018. Competitive fixed-line market does include the second national operator (Globacom) as well as the over 80 other licensed companies. Alternative carriers combined offers around 85% of all the fixed connections though in the general terms about 80% of all connections to be wireless. Nigeria’s broadband sector has enjoyed a considerable consolidation among the key players, from the over 400 ISPS in the year 2012 to less than 90 by early 2018. Majority of the internet connections are usually via the mobile networks, GSM as well as 3G and more recently LTE, though there have been a number of the WiMAX operators that have found some niche in the market. Government has gone on with the plan to increased broadband penetration to 30 percent by the year 2018 and to be able to increase the mobile broadband penetration to 50% by the year 2020. To this end so far, regulator has been looking to auction the additional spectrum in 70oMHz and the 2.3 GHz bands.

This country has among the largest mobile market in the African continent, with about 142 million subscribers and the penetration rate of 101%. Number of the subscribers fell in the year 2017 as the consumers responded to the poor economic climate.