About 55.4% of Lagos State remains without 5G coverage as of Q4 2025 despite steady improvements in deployment, data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed.
This is contained in the NCC’s Industry Performance Report for Q4 2025 recently released.
According to the report, three years after the first 5G launch by MTN, followed by Airtel and Mafab Communications, there is still a wide coverage gap even in major cities such as Lagos and Abuja.
What they are saying
Presenting the report, the Commission’s Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Edoyemi Ogoh noted that where 5G is available, user experience has largely met expectations set during the spectrum auction.
According to him, consumers using 5G enjoy significantly better speeds and overall performance compared to older technologies.
However, the limited footprint of the network continues to constrain its impact.
“In Lagos, for example, the coverage gap is about 55.4%, in terms of areas where there is no 5G coverage at all, compared to 47.4% in Abuja,” he said.
While the coverage gap remains wide, the NCC data shows progress compared to earlier periods.
In Q3 2025, Lagos recorded a much wider 5G coverage gap of 70.9%. The reduction to 55.4% in Q4 indicates that operators are expanding coverage, albeit at a pace that still leaves many areas underserved.
A similar trend was observed in Abuja, where the 5G coverage gap improved from 65.6% in Q3 to 47.4% in Q4 2025.
According to the NCC, this shows that deployment is moving in the right direction, but far from complete.
4G continues to carry the data load
The report makes it clear that 4G remains the backbone of Nigeria’s data ecosystem. Ogoh explained that improvements in the 4G network have been driven by a stronger backbone and the impact of the spectrum trading framework, which has provided operators with additional capacity to carry data traffic.
As a result, most Nigerians still rely on 4G for everyday internet use, particularly in areas where 5G coverage is either weak or completely absent.
The NCC also reported gains in road network coverage. About 326 kilometres of roads that previously had no mobile coverage are now covered based on the Commission’s samples.
However, the quality of service on roads is still overwhelmingly delivered via 4G.
The report shows that 97% of locations where users experienced very good service quality on Nigerian roads were powered by 4G networks, reinforcing its central role in mobility, security, and continuous communication.
More insights
As of December 2023, 2G was still the dominant technology in Nigeria as it accounted for 57.84% of all connections at that time.
However, increased investments in rapid expansion of 4G networks by the network operators have flipped the tables in favour of 4G connectivity.
According to NCC’s data, 51.99% of the 177 million active connections recorded in November 2025 were 4G.
At the same period, 5G connections stood at 3.60%, while 3G was 6.13%. The oldest technology, 2G, still remained the second dominant technology at 38.29%.
What you should know
As part of efforts to improve connectivity in the country, the NCC recently unveiled a new spectrum roadmap aimed at expanding the country’s broadband capacity amid the surge in data consumptions by Nigerians.
The initiative is designed to attract investment and prepare Nigeria’s telecoms infrastructure for rapidly growing data demand.
According to the Commission, GSMA Intelligence data projected average mobile data usage per connection in Nigeria to increase from 5.8 gigabytes per month in 2025 to 12.0 gigabytes by 2030.
Over the same period, active mobile subscriptions are projected to grow from 171 million to about 220 million.
The growth is expected to push total national mobile data traffic from 11.9 exabytes in 2025 to 31.7 exabytes by 2030, equivalent to about 2,640 petabytes per month.
