With the recent report released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on its website that Nigeria’s internet Users have hit 100.9m in February from 1.2 million in January, the indication is rife that very soon, available infrastructure will begin to have issues with carrying capacities of internet traffic.
Business Hilights Intelligence Unit (BHIU), an independent research consultancy division of the media group in a recent report revealed that “just as internet uptake is rising, marching infrastructure are not on ground to carry the surge and this means that a time shall come when quality of service will become horrible”.
Already, clear signals of poor quality of service are being observed in parts of the country and the initial speed in the deployment of 4G LTE seems to have waned over time.
In an interview few weeks ago, the President of Association of telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Engineer Olusola Teniola observed that issues of vandalism, forex scarcity and Right of Way plus multiple taxation across states remain serious drawbacks’ in the nation’s drive to affordable, accessible and reliable broadband penetration.
BHIU in its report also noted that “Checks on the delivery of fibre optic cables across the segmented seven regions remain too low and may frustrate the nation’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) to meet the target of 30 per cent penetration come the end of 2018.
Additional details from the NCC’s Monthly Internet Subscribers Data for February 2018 showed a marginal increase of 670,385 new subscribers in the country, another clear indication that more Nigerians are joining the connected world of internet.
NCC said Airtel, MTN gained more internet subscribers during the month in review, while Glo and 9mobile were the big losers.
The breakdown revealed that MTN gained the most with over 762,366 new internet users increasing its subscription in January to almost 38 million from 37 million recorded in January.
It said Airtel also gained 247.216 new internet users in February amounting to 25,075,110 million users as against 24,827,894 users in January.
The report also noted that 9mobile however lost 146,034 internet users in February, decreasing its subscription to 11,132,153 as against 11,278,187 recorded in January.
However, the published figures on NCC website disclosed that in February, Globacom lost 193,127 internet users decreasing its subscription 26,733,989 from the 26,927,116 recorded in January.
But several internet users who spoke to BHIU on the Glo internet users’ drop in February said with observed service improvement on Glo’s internet services, since recently, the telecom will not only recover lost subscribers, but will poach all other networks when the next month’s data will be out.
