Telecommunications operators in Nigeria have kicked against the federal government’s decision to peg the reserve bid price of 5G license at N75 billion. This is coming on the heels of Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, disclosure that the two spectrum slots reserved for 5G operations will be auctioned at N75 billion reserved price each. The Commission also said that the auction for the slots will happen December 13, 2021. NCC said this at a Stakeholders engagement forum on draft information memorandum for 3.5 Hgz Spectrum auction, it held at Mariot Hotel, Ikeja Lagos. In spectrum auctioning, reserved price means the starting point at which those interested to acquire the slots will bid.
Meanwhile, NCC has scheduled December 10 for the mock auction, while the actual auction is fixed for December 13, 2021. Interested operators are expected to pay 10 per cent of the reserved price of $197.4 million to qualify to participate in the auction. Kicking against the price, Chairman Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria, Alton, Engineer Gbenga Adebayo expressed concern that the price came a bit high for the operators considering the huge investments they needed to make to ensure a robust 5G roll out in the country. Adebayo believed that the best government should have done is to make the spectrum license as affordable as possible so that the country will maximise all the potential of 5G technology when it is rolled out. He said ” Let me say that the telcos will do everything possible to support the government to see out a successful auctioning and a smooth 5G roll out in the country.
” However, our concern is on the reserved price for the auction. That is where the issue is and that is where all the Stakeholders should look into”.
Although Adebayo was seen as having spoken for all the telcos, being the leader of their umbrella body, individual companies who sent representatives to the forum, like MTN, Airtel, Globacom, 9Mobile, Smile among others, told Hi-Tech that they have sent their concerns directly to the NCC on the high price of the license fee and other issues which they want the Commission to look into. The operators may be responding to concerns of the global body for all GSM companies, GSM Association, GSMA which had earlier called on Nigeria to ensure its spectrum price is brought down to enable telcos roll out 5G services conveniently. There is the belief that spectrum pricing in Nigeria is one of the highest in Africa. The reserved price for the GSM auction in 2001 was fixed at $100million and the Operators ended up paying up to $285 million at the end of the auction.
The worries of telecom operators were responded to at the ongoing forum.
The stakeholders ‘forum holding in Lagos is part of activities lined up for the implementation of the Fifth Generation (5G) Technology Deployment Plan in the country. The forum will afford industry stakeholders the opportunity to discuss the draft Information Memorandum (IM) for the upcoming auction of the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum band. The Information Memorandum (IM) is a comprehensive document, which defines the process employed by the Commission for the auctioning of the 3.5GHz spectrum band. It also provides information on the Nigerian telecommunications market, details of the spectrum to be made available, the pre-qualification process, the auction process as well as the indicative timetable. It should be noted however that Nigeria is not the first country to put 5G for auction. Several countries, among them Germany have auction 5G spectrum. In Germany, for instance, four operators paid 6.55 billion EUR for the 5G spectrum, though Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone Germany criticised the high prices of the country’s auction.
