MTN Nigeria today said it will make investment in LTE networks after bagging the spectrum in the 2.6 GHz band.
MTN Nigeria will offer 4G LTE broadband internet services across the country, starting in the major cities of Lagos and Abuja.
Nigeria is one of 28 African countries that currently offer 4G services with very low penetration. The success of MTN in this auction is a big boost to its plan to deliver global mobile broadband and LTE 4G services to over 60 million customers in Nigeria.
MTN plans to use FDD networks in addition to its existing WiMAX over TDD networks, as this provides for greater consistency with existing 2G and 3G deployments.
MTN Nigeria CEO Ferdi Moolman said: “After complying with all the requirements for the 2.6GHz auction and making the license payment of N18.96 billion to the NCC, MTN has been issued a letter of award.”
Recently, MTN Nigeria has faced multi-billion penalty from the telecom regulator.
“MTN believes in Nigeria and we have expressed this belief in the level of our investment, which currently stands at approximately USD 15 billion and counting. We believe that there is need for significant levels of investment in broadband infrastructure and services to truly launch Nigeria into the information age,” Ferdi Moolman said.
MTN has built the most extensive private fiber optics superhighway in Africa and the Middle East, covering approximately 16,000 kilometres, which is longer than the distance from Indonesia (Asia) to Argentina (South America).
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com