September 4, 2021

Federal government has pegged the auction price for a slot of 5G spectrum N75 billion which may likely go above N100 billion.

The auction will now hold in 2022 following the completion of all due processes including meeting with stakeholders, a buy-in of the National Assembly and approval by the Federal Executive Council.

At a public hearing of the Senate, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) also told the Senate that telecoms is projected to contribute to the national treasury about N150 billion next year. This amount excludes the anticipated billions of naira from the 5G spectrum auction.

“It is very important to stress this, a reserve price for a slot of the 5G spectrum is going to be N75billion, but after an auction by the Committee, it can go as high as N100 billion,” Danbatta told the Senate Committee on Communications.

He said that the 5G auction committee has virtually concluded their work with the 5G deployment plan submitted to the federal government, adding that the telecom regulatory body is only waiting for the government to give an order to proceed.

The 5G is the latest genre in the telecom ecosystem and it is reputed to be the fastest and most versatile communications variant. It was however at the centre of several conspiracy theories concerning its alleged health hazard but both the International Telecommunications Union, ITU,  and World Health Organisation, WHO, have debunked such theories.

Nigeria had earlier carried out a demo of the 5G but formal rollout will now happen by 2022, if all goes well as planned.