Telecom
Why Government Should Encourage Telcos in Nigeria- Jane Egerton-Idehen
BY chukwuemeka fred agbata
There is no doubt that Nigeria has one of the largest Telecom markets in Africa as the sector attracts considerable foreign investment.
Over The Top Players, OTTPs, such as WhatsApp, BlackBerry Messenger, Telegram and many others, have significantly affected the average revenue per user of Telecom subscribers and this has adversely affected the overall revenue of the industry.
Questions that are begging for answers includes, ‘where does the industry go from here, having invested billions of dollars?’ ‘How does the Television compete with OTT players who have very little investments in overheads?’
I recently had a chat with Jane Egerton-Idehen, Country Manager, Avanti Satellite Communications and our discussion centered on her thoughts on the way forward for the Telecom industry in Nigeria.
Jane, who has been in the Telecom industry for a while now, thinks that the industry is currently at the threshold of an evolution, where it is about to enter into a transformation phase.
She observed that the growth of the industry is slowing down globally, with declining revenues, although the customers are becoming more savvy and aware in the face of technology that is daily becoming more sophisticated.
In terms of returns on investment, however, Jane thinks that it is not coming in as it should be. She also observed that, one good thing that is currently happening in the industry, is that, there is ample room for growth.
“It is also at a point where we are about to access a new layer of countries on the continent of Africa. Places that we haven’t been before”, she stated. She further observed that, all this while, the Telecom industry had concentrated in the cities, but now, gradually moving into the rural areas.
Jane is of the opinion that investors should be interested in investing in rural telephony because, that is the next phase where the billionaire subscribers will come from. “And that is where technology hasn’t really accessed untapped potentials”, she observed.
She, however, stressed that, for efficient return on investment, the infrastructures used in the cities cannot be used in the rural areas because, the cost model for rural areas has to be lower as the expected revenues from there will not be as much as we currently have in the cities.
“Yes, the technology in the sense of base stations or switches have to be the same, but how can we make the costs lower? How can we make them cheaper? How can we use lower cost models to access them? So, we really have to rethink all these”‘, she posited.
Government can compel investors to invest in the rural areas, through policies and regulations as well as complement the efforts of the investors, In Jane’s view, even though, they might be reluctant to do so because of the lower returns they are likely to get from there, coupled with the projected higher cost expected to be used in running the facilities in the rural areas.
To Jane, technology is capable of positively affecting the growth of the rural areas as this is where most of the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, SME’s, are located, so, the government should be interested in this. She emphasised that the government can assist in facilitating the process for the investors in areas, such as site cost, customs clearance, swift right of way approvals, etc. She also suggested the use of Satellite KA band of a low cost model for accessibility in rural areas.
Jane believes that the OTT players are making a huge impact in the Telecom industry, even though, they are eroding the revenue accruing to the Telcos. In her opinion, therefore, players in the Telecom industry should be thinking about what to do about it, instead of whining about it.
In Jane’s view, we should take a look at relaxing some of our policies and regulations to encourage Telcos that have physical infrastructures, pay tax and are helping to reduce the unemployment in Nigeria by employing Nigerians to work in their companies. This is in contrast to OTT players who do not have or do these things in Nigeria but take a chunk of the revenues that would have accrued to the Telcos.
“We can demand for things, like they should have physical presence in the country. We can demand that they invest in certain sectors of our industry as a way to give back, for the kind of revenues they are making from our country”, she concluded, in respect of the foreign OTT players.
Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.
The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, the highly rated smart city with ambition to become the Data Centre hub of Nigeria.
The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtra by Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the esteemed chairman of Eko Atlantic Mr. Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm Design Group Limited, Mr. Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.
The Nxtra Data Centre went through a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed construction from Eko Atlantic.
Commenting on the developments, Mr Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensure that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.
“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.
“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.
The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.
In his remarks, Mr Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.
“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.
During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.
Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Mr. Massoud noted that the inspection tour underscored the city’s dedication to infrastructure of global relevance.
“Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria. The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.
Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem,” he said.
Through this ongoing investment, Airtel Nigeria and Nxtra continue to demonstrate their commitment to building infrastructure that enables innovation, supports economic development, and accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation.
Nxtra by Airtel is developing a network of hyperscale data centres across the continent. Besides Lagos, construction of a new data centre has also commenced in Nairobi, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Google has partnered with top African research institutions to unveil WAXAL, a massive open-access speech dataset aimed at giving over 100 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa a stronger voice in the AI future.
The initiative, announced Monday, targets a key digital gap by supplying high-quality data for 21 local languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Acholi. It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings for advanced synthetic voice tech.
Voice AI has exploded globally, yet Africa’s 2,000-plus languages suffer from severe data shortages, sidelining hundreds of millions from native-tongue tech access. WAXAL, three years in the making with Google funding, changes that equation.
“This dataset lays the groundwork for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to craft tech in their own languages, impacting over 100 million lives,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.
She highlighted its potential for African innovators to develop educational tools and voice services that spark economic growth continent-wide.
Community-led from the start, the project involved Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda (Rwanda), and others. These partners own the data outright, pioneering fair AI collaboration models.
Covered languages: Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, Yoruba.
WAXAL goes live today. Details at goo.gle/IntroducingWaxal.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled its Q4 2025 Network Performance Reports, showcasing nationwide quality boosts fueled by over $1 billion in industry investments and sharper regulatory focus.
NCC
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, hailed the Ookla-backed data as proof of NCC’s drive for transparent, evidence-driven oversight of Nigeria’s digital growth.
The reports track real-user experiences across cities, villages, highways, and nascent 5G areas, revealing faster median download speeds in both urban and rural spots versus Q3 2025.
Video streaming quality gaps between city and countryside have shrunk, thanks to a beefed-up 4G network—yet 5G rollout lags, upload speeds falter, and coverage holes linger in spots.
Maida said NCC is leaning on operators to fix these via spectrum tweaks, infrastructure drives, and stricter service rules, with 2025’s 2,850 new sites already paying off in broader reach and capacity.
Operators pledge even bigger spends in 2026 to keep the momentum, aiming for top-tier connectivity and economic inclusion for all Nigerians.
“We’ll turn these insights into real gains in service and access,” Maida affirmed, calling for sustained industry teamwork.
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