By Adeyemi Adepetun
THE Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has put the number of mast and towers in the industry at 40,451.
NCC said the operators of these major telecoms infrastructure provide telecommunications operations across the 36 states and in at least each state of the geopolitical zones of the country.
The operators, according to the commission, in a telecoms sector report, IHS Towers NG Limited; IHS (Nigeria) Limited; Zysod Communications Limited; INT Towers Limited; Hotspot Network limited; M-P Infrastructure Limited; Trussnet Limited; SWAP Technologies; Communication Towers; Star Solution LTD.
Others are Fahmaiyaa Nigeria Limited; ATC Nigeria Wireless Infrastructure Ltd; Connectivity Infrastructure services Limited; Moytel Consultants Limited and Applistructure Consulting Limited.
NCC said IHS Towers NG Limited controls 969 towers; IHS (Nigeria) Limited has 16, 330; INT Towers 16, 330; Trussnet Limited, two and ATC Nigeria 6907 of the country’s mast.
According to NCC statistics, as of December, 2021, Lagos State recorded the highest concentration of BTS sites at 5,288 while Yobe State recorded the least number of sites at 342. The commission claimed that the situation in the North East is attributable to the activities of insurgency in that geopolitical area that destroyed some towers.
In terms of revenue, the report disclosed that by the end of 2021, the total revenue for the collocation and infrastructure sharing licensees was N3,072,264,433.32, while operating cost was N2, 329,068,819.71 (based on submissions made by operators). NCC puts CAPEX expenditure at N 266,263,305.67 as of the period under review.
In terms of staff profile within the sub-segment, NCC put the total staff strength of collocation and infrastructure sharing operators at 1,920. In record, Nigerian staff were 1,511 male and 360 female while expatriates base was put at 48 male and one female.