‘We remain committed to driving broadband capacity’ — Airtel Africa commends NCC over 5G spectrum auction

Segun Ogunsanya, group chief executive officer of Airtel Africa, has commended the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for a transparent 5G auction. 

In the statement released by the company, Ogunsanya confirmed that Airtel Nigeria pulled out of the NCC’s auction after submitting its final bid of $270m. 

NCC had conducted the 5G spectrum auction with a reserve price of $197.4 million for two lots of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band. 

At the assignment stage, Mafab Communicationations and MTN Nigeria had emerged as winners of the 5G licenses.

He said that the company remained committed to penetrating the telecommunications market across sub-Saharan markets to augment broadband activity.

 “The business case for 5G across all sub-Saharan markets is evolving, and we remain committed to driving broadband capacity in our various markets,” he said. 

“We will continue to closely track the 5G ecosystem over the next several years, in particular the availability of affordable 5G devices and relevant use cases. 

“Airtel Africa retains ample capacity, spread across various spectrum bands, in Nigeria and its other markets, to continue to meet the growing data demands of our customers for many years to come, with several potential routes available to the business to deliver even greater capacities, cost-effectively, in the long run.”