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Ntel has rolled out 600 base stations in preparation for LTE-A, VoLTE launch in two major cities, CEO says.
Nigeria’s defunct incumbent telecoms operator will relaunch services this week, according to local press reports.
Newly-rebranded Ntel plans to start offering 4G services in Lagos and Abuja first, starting on Friday, Nigerian publication The Guardian reported, citing comments made by the firm’s CEO Kamar Abass.
The company has reached agreement with channel partners and has received the required regulatory approvals from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), including the go-ahead for VoLTE services, Abass said. It has also rolled out a significant amount of network infrastructure.
There is no mention of a launch date on Ntel’s Website, but the company has opened up registration for would-be customers.
After years of delay, the Nigerian government completed the privatisation of incumbent operator Nitel and its mobile arm Mtel last year; the Natcom consortium paid the final instalment in the $252.5 million purchase price in April.
There has been talk of a return to the market for Nitel, under the Ntel brand for much of the past year, but the company itself has remained relatively tight-lipped on the subject.
Presuming the most recent press reports prove accurate, Ntel will relaunch into a highly competitive market.
Nigeria is served by four GSM operators which together had 149.02 million customers as of January, according to the NCC’s latest figures. MTN is the market leader with a 42% share, followed by Globacom and Airtel, with 22% and 21% respectively. Etisalat has a 15% market share.
The country also has 2.1 million CDMA customers, the vast majority of which are connected to Visafone, and just under 200,000 fixed-line and fixed wireless connections.
Ntel has installed 200 km of fibre in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, Abass said, and has deployed around 600 mobile base stations in Lagos and Abuja running on spectrum in the 900-MHz and 1800-MHz bands; it has plans for a further 200 mobile sites. It has also rolled out LTE-Advanced with MIMO.
