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Three companies have emerged as pre-bidders for Nigeria’s highly coveted 5G spectrum licence with a reserve price of ₦75 billion. They are MTN Nigeria, Mafab Communications Ltd and Airtel Networks Ltd. According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), all three successfully submitted their bids in line with the requirements of the 5G Information Memorandum (IM).
Mafab appears the youngest of the operators. It was incorporated on the 8th of July, 2020 and licensed by the NCC to provide and operate local interconnect and international carrier services.
“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,” the telecom regulator revealed in a statement issued this week in Abuja by Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde.
“The public also needs to know that all three bidders are existing licensees of the Commission under different license categories,” Adinde further stated.
The telecom regulator has already announced December 13, 2021 as the date it will auction 3.5 Gigahertz (3.5 GHz) spectrum for the deployment of 5G technology in Nigeria.
The reserve price for 5G licence has been pegged at ₦75 billion (about US$197.4m). This is the baseline for the auction process. It could go for more depending on how the contest plays out in Africa’s largest mobile market of over 180 million subscribers.
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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.
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.
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.
