News Desk
The Nigerian telecommunications industry domestic investment stands at 785,771,028,960.36 as at
December 2022, the latest report from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the industry regulator, has indicated.
The just published ‘2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report’ by the Commission reflected that despite the huge investments to enhance their operations, the telecoms operators still contended with a huge operational cost of N2,092,815,085,166 during the year.
According to the report, while the operators revenue for the year totaled N3,856,026,156,380.29, out of which they raked in 40,742,900,243.50 from value added services.
During the year under review, the sector attracted approximately $399,905,531.38 in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) compared with $753,044,446.35 recorded in 2021.
A further analysis of the report showed that the telecoms industry contribution to the Nigerian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased from 12.61% in Q4, 2021 to 13.55% in Q4 2022.
The statistics showed that a total of 34,862 towers and 127,294 base stations were built by the operators nationwide while 289,270.48km microwave coverage were deployed in 2022.
Also, 125 Gateways were recorded in the telecom industry as at December 2022 and Fiber Optics Deployment of 96,198 km (terrestrial fiber & submarine cable) were recorded.
The NCC said that the telecoms operators are still much in the business of deploying submarine fiber as the deployment in kilometers was 27,868.3km as against 27,818.3km in 2021 with an of 0.17% within the period under review.
The fiber deployment by four operators comprised MTN -17,984km; GLO-9,800km; AIRTEL-14.3km and NTEL-70km, however further analysis of the Fibre Optics deployment totaled 77,235.5 KM of fibre (On-land and Submarine) as at December, 2022; with 49,367.2km on-land and 27,868.3km on submarine.
The Fibre Optics deployment data showed that MTN had the largest on-land and submarine deployment of 14,612KM and 17,984KM respectively as at December, 2022.
On Microwave Radio, the NCC reported that the mobile network operators deployed a total of 288,947.48KM of Microwave Radio Links as against the 290,625.69KMof Microwave Radio Links reported for 2021 with Airtel Nigeria deploying the longest of 81,352.00km.
Similarly, on the trunks use in the industry, MTN, AIRTEL, GLO and EMTS have a total number of 41,395 Trunks (E1) in use as at December, 2022 indicating a decline from 59,048 Trunks (E1) reported as at
December 2021.
The Commission reported that most operators have implemented and evolved IP Capacities to carry volumes of data traffic hence the perceived reduction in E1 which was experienced in 2021.
And for the numbers of gateways in use: MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, SMILE and NTEL have a total number of 62 gateways in use as at December, 2022. A summary shows, MTN had 1; GLO -3; AIRTEL – 16, EMTS – 39, SMILE -2 and NTEL -1.
