The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has released the Information Memorandum for 5G spectrum auction in Nigeria. According to the IM, NCC will be offering two Lots of 100 MHz each in the 3.5 GHz band ranging from 3500 – 3600 MHz and 3700 to 3800 MHz for auction.
The Commission said the reserve price for one Lot of 100 MHz has a value of $197.4 million or its equivalent in Naira at the prevailing Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rates at the time of the auction.
The spectrum assignment process, NCC said, would comprise an Auction to be held in Abuja. “It is planned that the Auction will take place during the week commencing 13 December 2021,” the Commission further disclosed.
The planned 5G spectrum auction is in tandem with the deployment timelines released by the Commission last year, where it stated that the spectrum for 5G would be auctioned in Q4 2021. The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, had also recently declared that 5G would be deployed in Nigeria in January 2022.
In addition to the reserved price of the spectrum, NCC said winners without existing service provisioning license will also pay an additional fee of N374.6 million. “To qualify to bid in the Auction, the Applicants will not have to be Licenced Network Operators in Nigeria. However, any successful Bidder who does not have a Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) will be granted one upon payment of the specified fee. The tenure for the UASL will be Ten (10) years, subject to renewal.
“Where a winner does not hold a Unified Access Service Licence (UASL) which is the Operational Licence for the frequency Spectrum slated for auction, it will be issued at an additional fee of Three Hundred and Seventy-Four Million, Six Hundred Thousand Naira only (N374, 600,000.00) or at the subsisting licence fee at the time of the auction,” NCC stated in the IM.
The Commission added that the Spectrum lot won by each bidder will be assigned on a nationwide basis covering all the States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It warned the prospective bidders that there is a subsisting policy on “use-it or lose-it” with respect to the use of assigned Spectrum, which means that any bidder that wins the spectrum and fails to roll out services within the stipulated time will lose the spectrum.
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