The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that its second 5G licensee, MAFAB Communications has rolled out 5G service contrary to reports that the company has not launched 2 years after it was issued a licence.
This is coming amid concerns by stakeholders that the company, which had a media launch in January this year has not been able to make its service available to Nigerians.
Questions are being asked about the availability of the company’s routers or SIMs to access its service even months after the media launch.
While the company is yet to make any official statement on concerns being raised, NCC, which issued the licence said it is satisfied with the level of progress the company has made.
NCC’s statement
Debunking the claims that MAFAB has not launched its service, NCC in a statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka, said:
- “The attention of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been drawn to some misleading comments on social media which falsely claimed that “ MAFAB Communications, one of the companies granted Fifth Generation (5G) licences by the Commission is yet to roll out the service, nearly two years after obtaining a licence, and one year after the roll-out date.
- “For a fact, MAFAB Communications is one of the two successful companies that won a 5G Licence during the globally acclaimed transparent 5G Auction conducted by the Commission on December 13, 2021.
- “Upon fulfilling the condition of payment for the fee of $273.6 million in February 2022, the company formally received the licence on February 22, 2022.
- “Consequent upon the issuance of the 5G licence, and in line with the rollout conditions, MAFAB publicly launched its services in Abuja on January 24, 2023, and in Lagos on January 26, 2023.
- “At launch, the services were targeted at six cities – Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano and Kaduna.
- “The Commission has continued to monitor the progress of rollout by MAFAB and has been regularly briefed about the status of infrastructure deployment for service offerings as conditioned in its operating licence.”
The Commission urged members of the public and all stakeholders to ignore the false and misleading information concerning the 5G rollout by MAFAB.
MAFAB was issued 5G Licence alongside MTN in December 2021. While part of the licensing conditions required the licensees to roll out the service by August last year, the NCC gave MAFAB a 5-month extension which lapsed in January.
In line with that, MAFAB had a media launch in both Abuja and Lagos in January.
