Nigeria’s Broadband Penetration Under Threat as Telecos Hike Data Prices

Nigeria’s plan to achieve a 90% broadband penetration by 2025 may be impeded by the recent hike in data prices by telecom companies.

The Nigerian government had in March 2020, signed the Nigerian national broadband plan 2020-2025 designed to deliver data download speeds across Nigeria with effective coverage available to at least 90 percent of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per 1GB of data.

The two major telecommunications companies, MTN Nigeria Communications and Airtel Africa Plc, have recently announced a 10% increase in the price of data plan.

While both mobile operators were noticed to have significant price increments, the effects would be felt across the country as majority of the Nigerian internet subscribers are customers of these companies.

As of August 2022, MTN Nigeria accounted for 42% of Nigerian Internet subscribers which is the largest share.

Other mobile operators like Globacom, Airtel and 9Mobile accounted for 28%, 27% and 3% of internet subscribers respectively.

Info from some subscribers revealed some of the telecom operators topped the smaller data prices with N10 to N50 for the different data plans.

The price of a daily data plan of 2GB has been increased from N500 to N550; the price of 20GB monthly plan now sells for N5,500, up from N5,000.

With 84 million internet subscriptions, broadband penetration in Nigeria as of June 2022, stood at 44.30 percent, an appreciable figure from the country’s plan of reaching the 90 percent mark.

With the fresh data hike, the FG’s broadband plan may seem threatened as Nigerians would have to battle with the rising cost of food items and the same time, battle with the rising data cost.