Telecom
Spectranet Looks to Deepen Fixed Broadband Penetration in Nigeria – Awasthi
Ajay Awasthi is the chief executive officer of Spectranet Nigeria. He spoke on the efforts of the Internet Service Provider in deepening broadband penetration in Nigeria.
As a major player in Nigeria’s Fixed Broadband segment, through your fiber optic based Fixed Broadband service offering, how will you describe the pace of Nigeria’s broadband penetration and its impact on digital infrastructure?
Fixed Broadband penetration in Nigeria is at abysmally low levels currently at about 0.1%. This pales in comparison to overall broadband ( including mobile broadband) penetration which, as per the latest figures by NCC, is at 42.27 %.
Just to put these figures in the right perspective, the worldwide Fixed Broadband penetration in 2021(as per Statista) is 16.7% with Europe leading the table with 34.7% penetration.
Fixed Broadband services have the capability to deliver extremely cost effective, high quality and high-speed access to internet. It can play a significant role in overall development of world class digital infrastructure in the country.
It’s quite clear that there is a lot of ground to be covered to increase Fixed Broadband penetration to even half of the worldwide penetration level. Being the foremost ISP in Nigeria, Spectranet is keen to lead the effort to increase the FBB penetration to the next levels within the next 2-3 years.
Spectranet as a pioneer in launching 4G LTE services in Nigeria. What was the trigger for launching Fiber based Fixed Broadband services?
Culturally, we are an extremely data analytics and insight driven company with a deep sense of commitment towards proactively serving the needs of customers. Be it being the first to recognize the changing trends in data consumption and offering relevant products or anticipating and eliminating the causes of their pain points.
Post COVID, we have been keenly observing the key shifts in usage behaviour of our customers. A post COVID data user wants high speed internet access with low latency, high level of consistency with 99.99% up time.
All this at extremely affordable prices to watch movies on OTT platforms, play games or use video conferencing! We understood that these fast- evolving trends can be effectively addressed with a superior price-value proposition, through Fixed Broadband technologies.
This is what triggered our entry into Fixed Broadband and we are extremely pleased with the response we have been getting in the market in the cities of Lagos and Abuja. We will soon be entering into other markets too.
How is Spectranet going to differentiate its Fixed Broadband services once the 5G services are rolled out in Nigeria.
The telecom regulator NCC has done a commendable job by auctioning 5G Spectrum way ahead of many other countries. As per report the 5G services should get launched in the next 2-3 months times, though in a limited manner.
For a comprehensive 5 G launch, in order to realize the full benefits like high speed data, low latency, IOT, it’s critical to have an omnipresent network interconnected through a robust optic fiber network- connecting various towers and then for backhauling of the data to the network core and further.
All this infrastructure is at a miniscule level at this point of time and would certainly take a couple of years to be fully on-ground.
Having said that, Fixed Broadband and 5G technologies by no means are competing technologies. These will actually complement each other. Advanced technologies in fixed Broadband like XGS-PON are capable of delivering upstream and downstream speeds of10Gbps,way above 5 G speeds and at low latency levels.
Both the technologies will co-exist, serving different needs of the customers while on the move or working inside an office/home.
Fixed Broadband roll out is generally known to be slow paced due to associated challenges on account of securing right-of-way, trenching work and laying of cables. How is Spectranet managing rollout of FBB services? .
At Spectranet, we fully well understand the on-ground challenges and have been addressing these by deploying multiple technologies – HomeFibre ( FTTx) and FibreOnAir ( WTTx).
The latter is used in dense areas and helps in expediting roll outs of FBB. By this dual technology approach, we are able to deliver high quality internet services at a rapid pace.
What are your greatest challenges in offering FTTx services and how best could the challenges be addressed?
Nigeria has made rapid strides in mobile broadband penetration, with the regulator NCC playing a key role in proactively driving this through relevant policy interventions. However, the story is completely different in Fixed Broadband space.
This industry is completely bogged down by the lack of unified and robust policy framework for granting right-of-way (ROW) and charges the operator needs to pay for laying optic fiber cables.
Different states have different approaches to these which effectively thwart quicker rollouts. Further Non-availability of affordable/ reliable metro and national optic fiber networks also poses a key constraint on offering high quality Fixed Broadband services.
Given the criticality of FBB in delivering high quality and affordable services to the homes, SMEs/MSMEs, a unified, nationwide policy can help unleash the potential of this sector.
Over the last 3-4 years after MNOs launched their 4G services, we have witnessed intense Data price wars and a significant reduction in Data prices. How is Spectranet defending itself?
This will need a bit of explaining to set the context right. In Nigeria the regulator has fixed a floor price for Voice calls and the operators cannot charge less than the floor price.
This wise move by the regulator has ensured that no operator indulges in predatory pricing hurting the profitability of the industry which is so critical to the creation of a digital economy.
Strikingly, there is no floor price yet fixed for Data prices and that is leading to an imbalance in the industry, favouring the bigger players. While the MNOs are using their floor price protected voice revenues to cross subsidize and slash data prices, ISPs like us are forced to drop prices to unsustainable levels in order to defend themselves.
Let’s be clear that ISPs are defending the indefensible if the regulator doesn’t intervene immediately and set a floor price for data to curb predatory pricing.
Isn’t a price war good from the customers’ view point?
I have said this earlier also and my views remain consistent.
War of any kind is destructive by nature. A price war is no exception. It is a short- sighted ploy to gain market share. In the near term, it may be touted as a “customer friendly “move but over a period of time a price war results in significant destruction of value for the industry, forcing the players to degrade quality of services.
A price war is not sustainable in the longer term and a lose-lose proposition for both the operators and the customers. The hapless customers finally end up at the receiving end and are made to suffer through poor quality of services.
At Spectranet, we stay committed to provide high-quality, high-speed broadband to our customers. We believe in delivering a superior customer experience through better understanding of their needs and through differentiated tariff plans backed by excellent customer service.
Spectranet is known for its superior customer service. What is your approach to customer service?
At Spectranet, we deeply acknowledge the fact that customer service is not just limited to putting up a call center but goes much beyond and that CS can be a powerful source of differentiation in the market place.
Customer service to us is not a reactive action but an organization wide mindset which gets embedded into all aspects of the business.
Secondly, we constantly remind ourselves that Customer Churn is just one bad experience away. We call such bad experiences “customer pain points” and assiduously work on getting down to the causative factors and addressing these.
Proactive customer service (anticipating customers’ needs and pain points) is like a religion at Spectranet. The focus always is on eliminating these pain points or bad experiences by staying ahead of the causative factors.
Another critical factor is the design of Customer Service Delivery (CSD) organization and the hierarchical distance from the front-end Customer Service Executive to the CEO.
At Spectranet we have managed to keep just two layers between CSE and CEO and that helps significantly in staying tuned to customers’ requirements in a proactive manner.
Telecom operators are itching to increase the cost of voice call, SMS and data services by 40 per cent. Are Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Spectranet also thinking of a price hike in the cost of internet services?
Across all the industries the cost of doing business has seen a significant increase over the past few quarters. The cost of running the towers being a significant cost, the recent hike in the price of diesel has further exerted pressure on the bottom line.
As an industry, telecom has held the prices virtually constant over the last few years. In order to continue providing high quality services to our customers and continue to create direct and indirect employment to thousands of people, it’s imperative that survival of the industry is ensured through a price hike mitigating the impact of ballooning costs.
Nigeria has witnessed the landing of several submarine broadband cables in Lagos, with more still coming. How will these help Spectranet to offer better internet services to its customers?
It’s an extremely happy development, to say the least. Some of these companies are not only coming with landing station for their under-sea cables but also data centers.
Combination of these will help reduce costs of transiting traffic to the rest of the world but also bring in qualitative improvement by reducing latency.
We are hoping that more such players will also enter to provide intra-national lease line connectivity which still a major point of concern in terms of reliability and high costs. Just to substantiate, the cost of carrying data traffic from Abuja to Lagos is more than 3X the cost of carrying it from Lagos to USA!
what safety measures have Spectranet put in place to ensure security from Cyber attacks?
With more and more digitalization happening, the vulnerability to cyber attacks has increased for sure. Cyber Security threats caused by DDoS, Malware, Emotet etc. are quite common these days.
As an operator we take cyber security very seriously and have deployed sophisticated equipment to thwart and neutralize these threats. There are multiple layers of cyber security comprising latest generation of Firewalls and Intrusion Prevention systems which effectively neutralize such threats.
As Africa edges toward an estimated 750 million internet users by the end of 2025, the continent’s expanding digital footprint is increasingly matched by vulnerabilities that threaten its economic and national security.
Happiness Obioha, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tizel Cybersecurity
This concern took centre stage at the Africa Tech Alliance Forum (AfriTech 5.0), where Happiness Obioha, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tizel Cybersecurity, delivered one of the event’s most compelling arguments for a new cybersecurity paradigm rooted in African intelligence rather than foreign technology.
Speaking on the theme “Beyond Firewalls: The Case for Homegrown Cybersecurity Intelligence in Africa,” Obioha maintained that Africa’s cybersecurity risks cannot be effectively mitigated with imported solutions that were never designed for the continent’s distinct digital realities.
She described Africa’s cyber landscape as one defined by unique threat actors, infrastructural limitations, cultural nuances, and business patterns that global security platforms often fail to understand.
According to her, relying solely on perimeter-based defenses such as firewalls is no longer adequate in a world where cyberattacks grow more adaptive, persistent, and sophisticated.
Obioha argued that Africa’s dependence on generic global tools has created a critical gap in the continent’s ability to detect, interpret, and respond to emerging threats, and explained that foreign cybersecurity systems frequently misread local attack patterns or fail to anticipate region-specific vulnerabilities.
As a result, many African organizations operate with a false sense of safety while facing increasingly complex threats ranging from ransomware and financial fraud to targeted breaches on government infrastructure.
The Tizel CEO emphasised that Africa’s long-term security lies in adopting intelligence-led approaches that draw from local insights, indigenous expertise, and continental research, and noted that such solutions allow faster and more precise threat detection because they are built with an understanding of local behaviour patterns and digital environments.
Beyond security improvements, she stressed that homegrown cybersecurity also strengthens national sovereignty, reduces capital flight, expands technical capacity, and creates jobs in one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors.
Obioha cited Tizel Cybersecurity as an example of what locally grounded innovation can achieve, explaining that the company’s model integrates contextual intelligence, real-time monitoring, rapid incident response, and strict adherence to regulatory frameworks.
According to her, Tizel’s work with banks, telecom operators, government agencies, and SMEs demonstrates the measurable impact of Africa-specific cybersecurity architecture.
Among the results she highlighted were the prevention of a major ransomware attack in the financial sector, a significant reduction in network downtime for a telecom operator, and the deployment of effective real-time monitoring systems for a government agency.
She reinforced that Tizel’s success is built on its deep understanding of the African digital ecosystem, a familiarity she described as indispensable for delivering cybersecurity that genuinely protects African institutions.
The region’s business culture, infrastructural diversity, and evolving digital habits, she said, can only be accurately interpreted by experts who operate within the same environment.
Obioha urged African enterprises and governments to take a more deliberate approach toward securing their digital future, and encouraged them to re-examine their cybersecurity posture, invest in indigenous intelligence-driven solutions, and build internal teams equipped to respond to emerging threats.
The survival and competitiveness of African businesses, she noted, will increasingly depend on their ability to align security strategies with the realities of the continent’s rapidly evolving digital economy.
“Africa’s digital future is promising,” she concluded, “but it must be secured with intelligence and innovation that come from within the continent.”
MTN Nigeria and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) have signed a strategic partnership aimed at accelerating the growth, digital capacity, and sustainability of Nigeria’s 40 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
L-R: Julcit Onigbogi, Head of Legal, SMEDAN; Charles Odii, Director General, SMEDAN; Lynda Saint-Nwafor, Chief Enterprise Business Officer, MTN Nigeria and Ayham Moussa, Chief Operating Officer, MTN Nigeria, during the MTN, SMEDAN Seal Strategic Partnership Signing held at the MTN Plaza, Ikoyi on Thursday, November 27, 2025.
The signing ceremony was held at the MTN Plaza, Lagos, on Thursday, November 27, 2025.
MTN Nigeria’s Chief Operating Officer, Ayham Moussa, reiterated MTN’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s economic development, stating that MSMEs are the lifeline of Nigeria’s economy.
He said: “SMEs are the backbone of the economy and the backbone of employment in Nigeria. We are delighted to power SMEDAN’s platform and provide tools that help MSMEs reach customers, obtain funding, and access wider markets.
“This collaboration serves both our business and social development objectives.”
Chief Enterprise Business Officer, Lynda Saint-Nwafor, MTN Nigeria described the MoU as a tool to “meet SMEs at the point of their needs,” noting that nano, micro, small, and medium businesses each require different resources to scale.
She stated: “Some SMEs need guidance, some need resources; others need opportunities or workforce support. This platform allows them to access whatever they need.
“We are committed to identifying opportunities across financial inclusion, digital inclusion, and capacity building that help SMEs to scale.”
Speaking at the event, the Director General of SMEDAN, Charles Odii, emphasised the significance of the collaboration, noting that the agency cannot meet its mandate without leveraging technology and private-sector expertise.
He said: “We have approximately 40 million MSMEs in Nigeria, and only about 400 SMEDAN staff. We cannot fulfil our mandate without technology, data, and strong partners.
“MTN already has the infrastructure and tools to support MSMEs from payments to identity, hosting, learning, and more. With this partnership, we are confident we can achieve in a short time what would have taken years.”
Odii highlighted that the SMEDAN-MTN collaboration would support businesses across their growth needs, guided by their four-point GROW model – Guidance, Resources, Opportunities, and Workforce Development.
He added that SMEDAN has already created over 100,000 jobs within its two-year administration and expects the partnership to significantly boost job creation, business expansion, and nationwide enterprise modernisation.
The partnership will feature joint initiatives focused on digital inclusion, financial access, capacity building, and providing verified information for MSMEs. With millions of small businesses depending on accurate guidance and easy-to-access support, MTN and SMEDAN say their shared platform will address gaps in communication, misinformation, and access to opportunities.
The event concluded with the formal signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), setting the stage for the immediate roll-out of tools, content, and resources that will support MSMEs nationwide.
Telecom
MTN Nigeria Launches Y’ello Data Gifting Campaign as Digital Connectivity Shapes Festive Celebrations
MTN Y’ello Tide is the gift that keeps giving, with MTN exciting Nigerians through a season filled with yellow gifting, digital rewards, and festive moments. This year, MTN is giving customers even more ways to stay connected and celebrate, and the Y’ello Data Gifting initiative stands as one of the many offerings under MTN Y’ello Tide.
MTN Nigeria
With Nigerians embracing more digital-led ways to connect and celebrate during the festive season, MTN Nigeria has introduced its Y’ello Data Gifting initiative as part of the broader MTN Y’ello Tide, designed to encourage customers to share data with loved ones while standing a chance to win prizes worth millions of naira. MTN Y’ello Tide continues to position digital connectivity as an exciting way to gift this season, reinforcing that MTN is giving Nigerians more value at a time they need it most.
The campaign runs from December 1 to 25, offering daily rewards such as Samsung smartphones and ₦20,000 shopping vouchers for the top 20 data gifters each day. As a core part of MTN Y’ello Tide, the data gifting experience helps customers enjoy more yellow moments through rewards, bonuses, and shared connections. Customers who participate also enjoy bonus data, with 1GB awarded to those gifting 10GB or more, and 500MB for gifts ranging between 5GB and 9.99GB. Participation is available through *321# or the myMTN NG app between 10am and 10pm daily.
Across Nigeria, digital behaviour continues to evolve. Internet consumption reached a record 973,455 terabytes in December 2024, marking a 36.5 percent year-on-year growth according to the Nigerian Communications Commission. MTN Y’ello Tide taps into this shift by offering exciting, value-driven digital gifting experiences that help people stay connected throughout the season.
While costs of food and non-alcoholic beverages have risen by over 92 percent in the last three years, and inflation stood at 34.60 percent in November 2024 with food inflation at 39.93 percent, Nigerians continue to prioritise meaningful and cost-efficient ways to stay connected. This shift has led many families to favour experiential or digital gifts, particularly as surveys show that 76 percent of Nigerians experienced income reductions in 2024, based on the PiggyVest Savings Report.
Festive spending has also adjusted to new realities. Items such as Christmas trees now range between ₦23,000 and ₦700,000, up from ₦17,000 to ₦450,000 last year. In this context, telco-led promotions like MTN Y’ello Tide’s Data Gifting campaign offer an alternative form of giving that aligns with today’s lifestyle needs. MTN is giving customers more ways to celebrate in yellow, creating exciting opportunities to share, connect, and enjoy festive rewards.
Nigeria remains a mobile-first market with 103 million internet users recorded at the start of 2024, representing 45.5 percent internet penetration according to DataReportal. Data now functions as a core utility supporting work, education, entertainment, and social connection across the country, making MTN Y’ello Tide’s digital gifting even more relevant this season.
As a Lagos civil servant noted earlier this month, the season remains a time for gratitude and connection, regardless of spending patterns. MTN Y’ello Tide strengthens this sentiment by making it easier for customers to stay connected and enjoy meaningful gifting in an exciting and accessible way.
The Y’ello Data Gifting campaign continues until December 25, with terms and conditions applying. As part of MTN Y’ello Tide, the initiative reinforces that MTN is giving Nigerians a festive season anchored on digital convenience, rewarding experiences, and yellow-themed celebration.
Dial *321# or download the myMTN NG app to start gifting data to your loved ones. Campaign runs until December 25, 2025. Terms and conditions apply.
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