History of Mobile in Nigeria
The first mobile cellular services began in 1993 with Mtel, but it was elitist and restricted in every way. Later, other CDMA operators offered limited mobile phone services as a small segment of their bouquet of services. Widespread mobile services however took off in August 2001 after the country’s telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), issued GSM licences to new operators. . Each of the operators paid a $285m licence fee. The licensing threw up 3 operators – ECONET Wireless (now Airtel Nigeria), Mtel (a subsidiary of the state-owned NITEL), and MTN. ECONET Wireless launched the first commercial GSM services in Nigeria. In a few years, Nigeria was toasted everywhere as one of the fastest-growing mobile markets in the world. Before the 2001 licensing of GSM operators, Nigeria had a total of about 450,000 connected telephone lines. Most of those lines were analogue. Glomobile, the mobile arm of Globacom, Nigeria’s Second National Operator (SNO), took off in August 2003. By 2004, Nigeria had over 7 million telephone subscribers. Etisalat (now 9mobile) Nigeria took off in January 2007. Nigeria has since overtaken South Africa to become Africa’s largest mobile market. As at 2018, the country had recorded over 100 million active telephone lines. But the GSM operators did not only bring a revolution in voice and SMS. They quickly became the driving force that produced an Internet revolution in the country.
Mobile In Nigeria: GPRS Internet
As part of its 1st Anniversary celebration, Glo Mobile launched GPRS based services on August 29th, 2004. GPRS is a packet-based 2G technology that offered faster internet connectivity than circuit switched data (GSM dial-up).
Mobile in Nigeria: 3G Internet
In 2007, four applicants were successful in obtaining a 10 MHz lot each in the 2 GHz band for third generation (3G) mobile services. The successful operators were: In early 2008, GloMobile launched the first commercial 3G service on their UMTS/HSPA network, followed closely by MTN. Alheri later sold their 3G licence to Etisalat (now 9mobile), which rolled out their service in 2011.
Mobile in Nigeria: (DVB-H/Mobile TV
At the moment, only MTN and GloMobile offer mobile TV (DVB-H) services in the country. They both have Dstv Mobile service available to subscribers with type handsets.
Mobile In Nigeria: 4G LTE
The country has a growing 4G broadband sector that is latching on LTE technology. Some service providers started out running WIMAX technology, but have switched to LTE. In 2016, the mobile operators began to launch 4G LTE networks across the country and all of them offer commercial 4G service today. Here is a constantly updated list of active 4G networks in Nigeria.
Mobile In Nigeria: Smartphone Users
There were an estimated 15-20 million smartphones in use in the country as at December 2014. As at September 2016, it is estimated that there are 22 million smartphones in use (see: Nigeria Smartphone Penetration [September 2016]). And in 2018, there were 38 million smartphones in use in the country.
Mobile in Nigeria: Internet Configuration Settings
If you ever need to manually configure your mobile for web browsing, here are settings for Nigerian mobile networks.
Airtel Nigeria
Account Name: Airtel Mobile InternetAccess Point Name (APN): internet.ng.airtel.comUsername: internet (or blank)Password: internet (or blank)IP Address: nonePort: none
Glo Nigeria
Account Name: Glo High Speed InternetAccess Point Name (APN): gloflatUsername: flatPassword: flatIP Address: nonePort: none
Smile 4G Nigeria
Proxy : Nil (No proxy needed)APN Name: internetPassword: Nil (No password needed)IP Version: IPv4
NOTE: User must attempt to scan manually for the LTE network, which is SMILE NG or 62127.
MTN Nigeria
Account Name: MTN GPRSAccess Point Name (APN): web.gprs.mtnnigeria.netUsername: webPassword: webIP Address: 10.199.212.2Port: 9201 (for WAP) or 8080 (for HTML)
9mobile
Account Name: 9mobileAccess Point Name (APN): 9mobileUsername: nonePassword: noneIP Address: nonePort: none
Mobile In Nigeria: Mobile Network Codes
You’ve seen those numbers, 0814xxxyyyy, 0909yyyxxxx, etc, and wondered which network owns which. Now, you can know. Note though that because of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), users are able to migrate a particular number from its native network to another. So, network codes don’t necessarily tell all any more. 0701 Airtel07025 Visafone07026 Visafone07028 Starcomms07029 Starcomms07027 Multi-Links0703 MTN0704 Visafone0705 Globacom0706 MTN0707 ZoomMobile (formerly Reltel)0708 Airtel0709 Multi-Links0802 Airtel0803 MTN0804 MTEL0805 Globacom0806 MTN0807 Globacom0808 Airtel0809 9mobile0810 MTN0811 Globacom0812 Airtel0813 MTN0814 MTN0815 Globacom0816 MTN0817 9mobile0818 9mobile0819 Starcomms0902 Airtel0903 MTN0905 Globacom0909 9mobile
Mobile In Nigeria: Network Frequencies
If roaming to Nigeria, or intending to import GSM mobile phones into the country, be sure to note the following specifications required for the Nigerian market:
2G network: GSM/EDGE 900 / 18003G network: UMTS/WCDMA/HSDPA/HSPA 21004G network: click here for 4G networks and their frequencies
Regulator
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is the industry regulator in Nigeria. Official Website.
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