Mafab Communications, the telecom operator that secured one among Nigeria’s $273 million 5G licenses in 2021, has once more missed its self-imposed deadline to launch companies. Regardless of promising in December to go dwell by the tip of Q1 2025 in Kano and Abuja, Mafab has not deployed any of the 102 websites it mentioned would help the launch, elevating recent questions in regards to the firm’s capability to compete in Nigeria’s 5G market.
Mafab’s delayed launch leaves the 5G market as a two-horse race between MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria, leaving customers with restricted choices and setting again the federal government’s ambitions to deepen broadband entry.
The newest delay follows a sample of missed deadlines and public launch bulletins with out precise deployment, relationship again to January 2023, when Mafab hosted launch occasions in Lagos and Abuja with no service supply to comply with.
Initially anticipated to launch by August 2022, Mafab was granted a five-month extension by the Nigerian Communications Fee (NCC) after failing to acquire a Unified Entry Service License (UASL)—a fundamental requirement for telecom operations. Two years later, the corporate nonetheless hasn’t rolled out 5G companies.
The NCC is rising more and more impatient. In accordance with one NCC supply who requested to not be named as they don’t seem to be authorised to talk to the media, Aminu Maida, NCC govt vice chairman (EVC), summoned Mafab officers in December 2024 and gave them an ultimatum: deploy quickly or danger sanctions. It was after this assembly that Mafab promised to launch in Q1 2025, however the deadline has now handed and not using a single operational website.
Mafab declined to touch upon the missed deadline or its readiness to launch.
“They haven’t been capable of increase the funds required for the deployment,” Rotimi Akapo, companion and head of Telecommunication, Media and Expertise (TMT) at Advocaat Regulation Follow. “A lot of the tools should be imported, and it’s very capital-intensive.”
To get off the bottom, Mafab should both lease infrastructure from tower suppliers like IHS Towers or American Tower Company, or construct and handle its websites, relying on its deployment technique. Each paths require long-term lease agreements, set up of 5G base stations, and a core community platform with a functioning billing and enterprise help system.
Even probably the most fundamental launch could be costly. Business estimates counsel that deploying 102 base stations may value Mafab as a lot as $122 million in Nigeria, the place the common value per 5G website can attain $1.2 million, practically 10 occasions what Chinese language operators pay, due to bigger economies of scale and home manufacturing.
Mafab had hoped to skirt direct competitors with incumbents by launching in underserved markets like Kano and Abuja. However that window is closing quick. MTN and Airtel started providing 5G in Kano in 2023, based on Abdulrasheed Hussain, Digital Media Supervisor at Premier Radio Kano.
“Mafab is meant to be launched right here, however it hasn’t,” he mentioned. “Up to now, we’ve MTN and Airtel 5G routers in Kano.”
Mafab might pivot towards fastened wi-fi broadband—a less expensive different to cellular 5G that delivers high-speed web to properties and companies. MTN and Airtel already use this mannequin to develop attain. Nonetheless, fastened broadband requires important funding in fiber or wi-fi backhaul infrastructure to ship dependable speeds.
“Mafab faces two main hurdles,” mentioned an funding professional who requested to not be named. “First, buyers are hesitant to again an unproven firm with no monitor file. Second, Nigeria’s foreign exchange disaster makes it troublesome for international buyers to herald capital. Home buyers alone might not be capable of fund this scale of funding.”
The window for Mafab to show itself is quickly closing as failure to launch may finally result in NCC withdrawing the licence. With out adequate funding and infrastructure, the corporate dangers being left behind in Nigeria’s 5G race, additional solidifying MTN and Airtel’s duopoly. Whether or not Mafab can overcome these challenges and eventually ship on its promise stays an open query—however for now, skepticism is at an all-time excessive.
