By 
Nigeria’s 5G spectrum winners have emerged at $546m as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications winners of the two slots of the 3.5GHz spectrum auction for the fifth generation network licenses. Airtel lost out to the relatively new Mafab which only got licensed last year.
Executive Vice Chairman, NCC and overseer of the auction, Professor Umar Danbatta, declared the winners at the 11th Round with bids closing at $273 milllion. MTN Nigeria and Mafab emerged as winners with winning bids of $273 million for each slot of the 3.5GHz spectrum auctioned to kit the federal governmnet purse with about $546m .
For the three bidders, the First Round kicked off at $199,374,000.00 above the reserve price of $197,400.000.00.
The figure rose to $201, 367,740.00 at the Second Round; and further increase to $204, 388,256.10 for Round Three.
It turned $209,497,962.50 at the Fourth Round. It rose to above $230 million and then clambered over $260 million to finally stop at $273 million easing out Airtel .
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, flagged-off the auction process organised by the NCC, the country’s telecoms regulator.
RELATED Attend Nigeria’s 3.5Ghz Spectrum Auction Virtually
The deployment of 5G will help address Nigeria’s security challenges and expand the window to leverage emerging technologies for development across sectors, said Pantami.
His words: “Things like Things of Big Data, IOT, will be used to figure out security issues. The general benefits of 5G deployment include low latency, and high bandwidth. At the top of our 5G policy the security agencies can leapfrog to solve security issues.
“We are convinced beyond that that it will help our security, help our digital economy march, strengthen our financial sector, etc. We feel that if 5G is deployed in Nigeria, it will support all sectors of our economy.
“Nigeria has the largest digital economy in Africa, largest telecom market, broadband subscribers, telephone subscribers and we hope by 2025 we will have the largest 5G subscribers.”
According to Danbatta, “Today’s auction is momentous in that it will usher Nigeria into the 5G realm,”
