Eyes are on MTN Nigeria and Airtel Networks Ltd with less than a week to Monday, December 13, 2021; the date announced by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for auction of 3.5 Gigahertz (3.5 GHz) spectrum for the deployment of 5G technology in Africa’s largest telecom market.
The MTN Group with headquarters in South Africa “sees the licence as a MUST.” A knowledgeable insider tells IT Edge News. MTN launched its 5G services in South Africa last year behind Vodacom in the same country. Its Nigeria’s operation is its biggest on the continent and “it plans to leverage its size and market strength in Nigeria for a 5G lead in Africa. Airtel is not going to tag along, I can assure you. It will not be a second fiddle or a late comer,” added the source.
Three companies emerged as pre-bidders for the highly coveted 5G spectrum licence with a reserve price of ₦75 billion (about US$197.4m). They are MTN, Airtel and Mafab Communications Ltd. According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), all three companies successfully met the requirements to be selected for the final bid as stipulated in the 5G Information Memorandum (IM).
“On December 1, 2021, the commission announced that at the close of the bid submission date of November 29, 2021, three companies, namely MTN Nigeria, Mafab Communications Ltd and Airtel Networks Ltd had successfully submitted their bids in line with the requirements of the IM,” y Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde, had revealed in a statement issued last week.
Mafab appears the youngest of the operators. It was incorporated on the 8th of July, 2020 and licensed by the NCC to operate local interconnect and international carrier services. “The company might well pull a surprise,” said one analyst in Abuja.
How Nigeria’s ₦75B 5G Auction Will Hold
According to the IM presented by the commission at a stakeholder engagement forum organised on 5G spectrum in Lagos recently, NCC is adopting Ascending Clock Auction format, which is software-based while a mock auction has been slated for December 10, 2021, as a precursor to the actual auction on December 13, 2021.
An Initial Bid Deposit (IBD) equal to 10% of the reserve price has also been adopted in line with the previous auction for GSM licence in Nigeria.
The IM provides information, conditions, obligations, financial implication, timelines and other necessary details on the planned 3.5Ghz spectrum auction.
The IM also explains the rollout obligations of the would-be eventual winners of the spectrum licence auction, whose reserved price has been pegged at $197.4 million (N75 billion).
The IM also states that only licensees, who make down payment of 10 per cent of the reserved bid price and with 100 per cent regulatory compliance would be allowed to participate in the auction while licensees with outstanding debts that have secured NCC’s approval for a payment plan will be allowed to participate in the auction.
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