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NCC confirms MTN, Mafab Communications’ payment of $276.3m each for 5G licences

Published

2 years ago

February 24, 2022

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said on Thursday it would issue new Fifth Generation (5G) spectrum licences to three companies in the country.

MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications got their 5G spectrum licenses in December last year with Airtel Africa losing out of the auction exercise which had a reserve price of $197.4 million for the 3.5GHz band spectrum.

The NCC Executive Vice-Chairman, Usman Danbatta, who disclosed this in a statement in Abuja, said MTN and Mafab Communications had paid the required $273.6 million each for the licences.

The commission had set February 24 as the deadline for the payment by winners of the spectrum auction.

MTN and Mafab will now have two years to operate before NCC issue three more licences.

Danbatta said: “I’m not saying the review is in the process as we talk. Not yet; because we want to ensure that these two assigned licences have started operations and are okay.

“Of course, we will give them time to see what plans they have because they need to start implementing their plan for expansion of infrastructure that will support these additional services.

“Everything is on the table, meaning we have so far auctioned two slots. We have three more to go and nothing stops the NCC from assigning the remaining slots.’’

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