Telecom
Congolese Regulator Understudies Nigeria’s Telecoms Market
Faith in the operational excellence and regulatory efficiency that have become the marks of Africa’s foremost regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), was demonstrated recently when a delegation from the Congo-Brazzaville Telecommunications Regulations Authority (CTRA) visited the NCC on a benchmarking tour.
Seated L-R: Engr. Bako Wakil, Director Technical Standards and Network Intergrity; Benjamin Mouandza, Director,Networks and Electronic Communications Services, CTRA; Ephraim Nwokonneya, Director, Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement, NCC; Dr. Ikechukwu Adinde Director, Public Affairs , NCC. Standing L-R: Ibrahim Galadima, Assistant Director ,Special Duties, NCC, Mr.Dorcia Kounduola, Head of Analysis and Operations Office,CTRA; Mr. Ghislain Louvouezo of the Traffic Management and Control Department, CTRA; Mr. Narcisse Kiouari of the Telecommunications International Affairs, CTRA and Ismail Giwa, Assistant Director, Special Duties, NCC at the NCC Head Office,Maitama Abuja
The delegation from the central African nation purposively paid a scheduled visit to NCC, essentially to understudy the latter’s policies, practices and programmes that have made it a model telecommunications regulatory authority on the Continent and beyond.
The Congolese team led by CTRA’s Network Director, Benjamin Mouandza, spent three days at the NCC Head Office in Abuja, where it was exposed to key result-oriented regulatory activities, frameworks, programmes and policies of NCC, with the objective to explore how such operational frameworks could be adapted by the African nation noted for its huge rainforest reserves.
In the letter written to Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NCC, the Congloese regulator had indicated interest to gain more insights into three areas of NCC’s regulatory activities, namely, management of issues associated with Quality of Service (QoS), SIM Boxing and Call Masking, as well as telecom equipment type-approval process.
In response to the request, Danbatta had graciously accepted to host the team and further directed relevant departments of NCC, including Special Duties (SD); Technical Standards and Network Integrity (TSNI); and the Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement (CME) directorates to interact with the team to provide necessary information sharing that may be useful to the Congolese counterpart.
Addressing the CTRA team, the NCC’s Director, TSNI, Bako Wakil, spoke extensively on the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) institued by NCC on QoS and how these KPIs are measured and monitored by the Commission toward ensuring improved service delivery to the Nigeria’s ever-growing telecoms consumers. He said this also helped to improve Quality of Experience (QoE) of the consumers.
On type-approval process, Wakil stated that the Commission had developed a rigorous type-approval process to ensure that telecoms equipment, including terminal devices, manufactured in line with international standards and specifications are brought into the country.
The “NCC is serious about type-approval process like other processes, because non-type approved devices and equipment which are also not manufactured to international standards and specifications have negative implications for quality of service delivery on the networks,” he said.
Wakil also spoke extensively, to the admiration of the Congolese team, on call masking and highlighted measures the NCC had put in place to address the menace. He described call masking as “the practice of sending international calls to an operator but disguising the calls as if they were local by sending the calls on the local interconnect route with a local number in the national numbering plan instead of the original international calling number.”
In a related presentation to the visiting team on SIM boxing fraud and efforts being taken by the NCC to combat the menace, NCC’s Director, CME, Ephraim Nwokonneya, spoke on the problems created by fraudulent practice of SIM Boxing, including threat to national security, loss of revenue to service providers and the government. Additionally, he asserted the anti-competitive practices associated with such acts among licensees as well as the general economic implications so evident in revenue loss.
However, Nwokonneya itemised solutions to SIM Boxing fraud from a regulatory perspective. He declared that regulators can deploy anti-SIM boxing and call masking solutions, be proactive and effective in monitoring and enforcement, collaboration with the industry and law enforcement agencies, capacity building through training and skill acquisition programmes, as well as the review of the Enforcement Regulations and enabling laws.
More importantly, Nwokonneya told the Congolese telecoms regulator team that collaboration between the regulator and the industry is required to effectively combat the menace of SIMBox Fraud, Call Masking and Call Refiling in conjunction with deployment of technological solution and well trained staff.
From the presentations, it was made clear that the scale of call masking and SIMBoxing has been on the downward decline in Nigeria while the number of complaints from subscribers on incorrectly displayed calling numbers has also reduced substantially. To prove that NCC processes emplaced to combat the menace are succeeding, Nwokonneya stated that there has been a significant and noticeable improvement in the display of correct international calling numbers into Nigeria networks.
The NCC Directors also reiterated that the Commission is also taking strategic actions on SIM Registration, the National Identification Number (NIN) and the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) linkage policy. The NCC team informed the visitors that a maximum of four SIM numbers are permissible to be registered per subscriber per network requirement. This is another measure deployed by the NCC to tackle SIMBoxing which usually requires multiple SIMs to flourish.
The NCC team emphasised that the combination of regulatory action and deployment of technology solutions have helped to put the menace of call masking and SIMBoxing in the Nigeria’s telecoms sector under check.
Commenting on the benefits of the visit, CTRA’s Mouandza, said the choice made by the Congolese regulator to visit NCC on a benchmarking tour has been worthwhile. “We have come to understand how the regulator in Nigeria has been handling some salient regulatory issues and matters in the country as it relates to telecoms. In the course of this visit, I can say that our objective has been achieved. The experience has been very rich, we have learnt many things. We thank the EVC and his team for accepting to host us. We are more positioned now to replicate some of the things we have learnt in our telecoms market back home,” he said.
The Congolese officials had practical demonstrations of the issues earlier discussed, especially the nature of technologies that have been deployed by the NCC to independently and remotely monitor, measure and validate QoS on the networks of mobile operators in the country.
It will be recalled that the visit by the Congolese team came barely a month after the NCC hosted officials from Sierra Leone’s National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM), who equally visited NCC to benchmark the Nigeria’s telecom regulator’s policies, programmes and regulatory activities.
Over the years, the NCC has constantly received delegations from telecoms regulators in Africa and this trend has remained a major boost for Nigeria’s global ranking as a model in telecommunications regulation. Suffice it to say, that, these benchmarking visits have eloquently reinforced NCC’s leadership status in operational efficiency, collaborative partnership, and commitment to intra-African solidarity in the telecommunications sphere.
Telecom
MTN Nigeria Reaches 93.7% Population Coverage, Invests N2.7bn In Communities as Child Online-Safety Drive Launches
Nigeria’s push to deepen broadband penetration and digital inclusion received a boost in 2025, as MTN Nigeria expanded network coverage to 93.7 per cent of the population.
MTN Nigeria
According to the company’s just-released 2025 Sustainability Report, the company invested N2.7 billion in social-impact initiatives that reached more than 534,000 people.
The company says the improved coverage, up from 93% in 2024, was driven by the continued rollout of base stations across rural and underserved communities.
This included the deployment of 229 integrated renewable, solar-powered rural telephony sites under its Project Zero initiative. Broadband penetration across MTN’s network footprint reached 90.1%, while 4G population coverage remained stable at about 82%.
And there’s more. The Nigerian Communications Commission says MTN Nigeria accounted for more than half of the country’s active GSM connections in 2025, serving approximately 89.64 million active mobile lines.
The CSR footprint of the company also expanded last year. MTN Foundation’s increased recipients rose to more than 534,000.
The programmes in 2025 spanned community infrastructure, maternal healthcare, youth empowerment and digital access. Under its STEM scholarship scheme, 300 students studying science and technology disciplines in public tertiary institutions received scholarships worth N300,000 annually through graduation.
The company also continued its Scholarship for Blind Students and Top-10 UTME Scholarship initiatives, while distributing more than 25,000 learning devices in partnership with state governments.
Another focus for the year was child online safety as MTN Nigeria’s ‘Help Children Be Children’ in response to growing concerns around online grooming and exposure to harmful digital content.
The initiative includes school sensitisation programmes, parental workshops and collaborations with civil society organisations.
On the flip side, the company disclosed that it spent more than NGN1 billion on infrastructure repairs and security interventions following 9,218 fibre cuts recorded nationwide during the year, incidents linked largely to vandalism and theft of telecoms assets.
Telecommunications subscribers across Nigeria have regained access to emergency airtime lending services as major operators, Airtel Nigeria and Globacom, restored the platforms following the suspension of the Digital, Electronic, Online or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending (DEON) Regulations 2025 by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
USSD
The restoration followed a Federal High Court order restraining the commission from enforcing the regulations pending the determination of a suit challenging its authority over telecom-based airtime lending services.
Confirming the development on Monday, Chairman of the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN), Ayo Stuffman, said the services had resumed on both networks.
“As we speak, the services in question are already active on Airtel and Glo,” he said.
The return of the services is expected to provide relief to millions of subscribers who rely on emergency airtime advances for communication and small-scale business activities.
Industry estimates place the annual airtime lending market at more than N400 billion.
The FCCPC had earlier introduced the DEON Regulations 2025 to regulate airtime lending platforms, arguing that the services fall within the scope of digital consumer credit.
The commission said the move was aimed at protecting users against alleged abuses, including unfair lending practices and data privacy violations.
According to the FCCPC, it had received over 11,000 consumer complaints relating to digital lending operations.
However, stakeholders in the telecommunications sector opposed the regulations, maintaining that airtime advances are telecom value-added services and not conventional consumer loans.
The dispute intensified after Justice A. Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Lagos issued an order stopping the enforcement of the framework.
Reports also indicated that contempt proceedings were initiated against the Executive Vice Chairman of the FCCPC, Tunji Bello.
In a statement issued on Friday, FCCPC Director of Corporate Affairs, Ondaje Ijagwu, said the commission suspended implementation of the regulations in obedience to the court order.
“As a law-abiding institution, the commission, in deference and in obedience to the rule of law, hereby suspends the implementation and enforcement of the DEON Regulations 2025,” the statement said.
Despite the suspension, the commission indicated plans to challenge the ruling, stating that its legal team had been directed to contest both the court order and the competence of the suit.
Industry stakeholders said the development had restored temporary stability within the telecom sector but warned that uncertainty surrounding the regulatory framework could affect investor confidence and long-term sector growth.
Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, had earlier called for clearer regulatory boundaries and greater policy predictability within the industry.
Observers say the outcome of the court case will shape the future regulation of Nigeria’s growing digital credit and airtime lending ecosystem.
According to Kaspersky telemetry, the number of NFC-based attacks on Android smartphones aimed at stealing victims’ funds have surged by 188% in the first four months of 2026, compared with the same period in 2025.
From January to April 2026, Kaspersky cybersecurity solutions blocked 35,600 attacks of different Android malware families that use NFC techniques, including SuperCard X, PhantomCard, NGate, as well as other malicious modifications of NFCGate tool, compared to over 12,300 attacks blocked during the first four months in 2025.
According to Kaspersky, users in Russia face NFC relay mobile threats more often, nevertheless Kaspersky experts note that users in other regions — especially in Latin America and Europe — also encounter NFC-based attacks. At the end of 2025, Kaspersky predicted an increase in the number of attacks on NFC payments in 2026.
At the moment, there are two main schemes of NFC-based attacks:
Direct NFC. Fraudsters contact victims via messaging apps and, under the guise of verifying users’ identity, trick them into downloading malware that is disguised, for example, as a financial application. Victims are then prompted to tap their bank card to an infected smartphone, as well as to enter the card PIN. As a result, the card data is handed over to the attackers.
Reverse NFC. Scammers send users a malicious application and, using social engineering techniques, persuade them to set this application as a primary contactless payment method on their compromised smartphones.
Such application generates an NFC signal that ATMs recognise as the scammers’ card. Victims are then persuaded to go to an ATM and deposit funds into a ‘secure account’ using their infected phone. In reality, the scammers receive the victims’ money.
“While previously attackers relied on ‘direct NFC’ scheme, now the ‘reverse NFC’ appears more common,” comments Sergey Golovanov, chief security expert at Kaspersky.
“The danger of a newer, more sophisticated scheme is that this type of fraud is harder to detect and fight against, because victims themselves transfer money to the attackers’ accounts and such transactions are hard to distinguish from legitimate ones.
“We do not rule out that NFC relay malware itself continues to evolve and geography of attacks will expand. That’s why this threat should be further closely monitored.”
“The first publicly reported attacks that used a modified legitimate NFC tool occurred in late 2023. Those attacks were primarily detected in Europe. Then users from Russia and other regions faced similar mobile malware attacks.
Later it became known that cybercriminals packaged NFC relay malware into malware-as-a-service (MaaS) offering, potentially simplifying access to malicious tools for other attackers. NFC relay campaigns demonstrate how threat actors adapt and reuse new methods to steal users’ funds,” added Dmitry Kalinin, cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky.
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