To renew its its 900 and 1800 MHZ spectrum licence for the next 10 years, Africa’s second biggest telecommunications company, Airtel Africa has paid N71.6 billion to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).This was made known by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, Raghunath Mandava who said that their current license was due to expire at the end of November 2021. The new license is expected to remain valid until 30 November 2031.
He noted that the Nigerian market is the “largest market and we remain focused on bridging the digital divide and expanding our broadband capability in the country.”
“On behalf of Airtel Nigeria and the Group, I would like to thank both the government of Nigeria and the NCC for their cooperation and support in this important process.”
In a separate development, Nokia and Airtel Kenya have joined forces in a three-year deal to modernize Nairobi with high speed 4G and 5G-ready hardware. Deployment, which began in June, will cover hundreds of sites and include upgrading existing 2G, 3G and 4G radio access network (RAN) coverage in urban, semi-urban, highways, tourist spots and central business districts in Nairobi and the rest of Kenya. Nokia’s future-proofed network infrastructure will also offer Airtel Kenya the option to smoothly transition to 5G when necessary. The upgraded network will deliver enhanced connectivity to customers of Airtel Kenya and access to new, high-speed data services.
“We are in the midst of rolling out our network to enhance coverage along with modernization of our data network that will help us to deliver improved, high-speed data services to our customers. This will allow our customers seamless coverage enhancing their browsing experience further,” says P. D. Sarma, CEO of Airtel Kenya.
“We are excited to partner with Nokia on this project. Its technology portfolio improves our network quality considerably and also allows us to move to 5G services in the future.”