More than 1,883 cuts were made to telecommunications operators’ fibre optic cable between January and March 2026, disrupting data services in across the country.
This was disclosed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) while briefing newsmen in Lagos on Thursday.
But the NCC also said the telcos had upgraded about 2,800 2G and 3G sites to 4G, signifying a faster internet speed and stable connection.
The commission which said the upgrade occurred early this year added that about 10,000 new and upgraded sites would be made operational before the end of 2026.
In his welcome address, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr Aminu Maida said things are really improving in terms of quality of service in the industry.
Maida added that efforts were going to further improve the data and call services across the country.
The NCC boss said the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) were putting on more investments to further make network ubiquitous, especially outside the urban areas and the underserved communities.
He however said more investments were needed to drive quality data services for subscribers.
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According to him, NCC is making further efforts to make industry attractive to more local and foreign investors.
On the NCC order to telcos to compensate the subscribers over poor service, Maida said the compensation to be given in form of airtime would start hitting subscribers’ lines from today (Friday).
He said any subscribers who had experienced poor services between November last year and January 2026 in some certain Local Government Areas in the country would be entitled to get the airtime.
The airtime compensation would be according to how much airtime or data purchased within the period, the NCC director of technical standards and network integrity, Engr Edoyemi Ogoh said.
Though Engr Ogoh added poor network occured at times due to vandalism of telecommunications infrastructure and efforts were being intensified to reduce vandalism in the industry.
On the suspension of credit services by some operators due to their disagreement with the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission (FCCPC), the Executive Vice Chairman said the issue was being resolved.
On the merger of Legend Internet Service provider (ISP) and Spetranet ISP, Dr Maida said it was a good development for the sector.
“This is a sign of a vibrant sector. We look forward to seeing more merger and acquisition in coming months,” he said.
He said the sector couldn’t afford to pause investments as doing so would be disastrous.
He revealed that one of the big four telecommunications operators had confided in NCC to invest millions of dollars for network upgrade this year alone.
He admitted that the 5G network rollover had been slow, attributing that to lack of adequate investments.
Daily Trust
