Ownership of 5G phones in Nigeria is greatly outpacing coverage, leaving many users unconnected to 5G, according to a new report conducted by Ookla and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
The “Nigeria Network Performance & 5G Opportunity Analysis” report, released late last week, found that 70.9% of 5G-capable devices in Lagos are unable to connect to any 5G network, while the same goes for 65.6% of 5G devices in Abuja.
According to the NCC, the results highlight “significant disparities in network experience across the country,” even in urban areas. That said, the gap is even more pronounced between urban areas where 5G is being deployed and rural areas that remain stuck with 2G and 3G networks.
“This imbalance continues to limit digital inclusion and economic opportunity outside the major cities,” the NCC report said.
The NCC pledged to accelerate 5G deployment in urban areas, as well as 4G and 5G expansion into underserved rural regions. The regulator also advised telcos to focus investment on improving latency and reducing jitter across all networks “to ensure a high-quality experience for real-time applications.”
Among other findings, the NCC/Ookla report named the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Lagos as the top-performing regions, with network performance 40-50% better than the national average.
The report also ranked MTN Nigeria as the top performance leader, consistently delivering the highest download and upload speeds with strong latency and jitter metrics. Airtel Nigeria followed closely in download performance but still struggles with latency – in fact, its 4G network performs better than its 5G network, the report said.
Meanwhile, Glo and T2 Mobile (formerly 9mobile) lag behind in terms of performance and network stability, with T2 scoring especially poorly in latency and jitter problems.
5G arrived in Nigeria in September 2022 when MTN launched its 5G network in select parts of Lagos in collaboration with Ericsson. Airtel Nigeria kicked off commercial 5G services in June 2023.
