Four months after the expiration of Nigeria’s National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020 to 2025, telecom operators are intensifying calls for a new broadband policy framework.
They said the country now needs a more practical and better-aligned roadmap to drive the next phase of digital infrastructure expansion.
The renewed demand comes as stakeholders assess the performance of the outgoing plan, which industry players say fell short of expectations in critical areas including execution, infrastructure coordination and policy alignment across different levels of government.
Nigeria fell short of meeting it’s 70% broadband penetration at the end of the five-year plan in December last year.
According to data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), broadband penetration in the country stood at 51.97%, indicating that nearly half of the internet users in the country have no access to high-speed internet.
What they are saying
Speaking with Nairametrics, the President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Tony Emoekpere, said Nigeria needs not just another plan, but a more executable and better aligned plan.
- “These plans are important as they set direction, align stakeholders, and attract investment.
- “Every serious digital economy operates with a clear broadband strategy, and ours is no exception. As with all policies, our challenge has been execution,” he said.
The ATCON President said the next broadband policy should place infrastructure rollout at the centre of national planning.
- “From ATCON’s standpoint, a stronger infrastructure first strategy, alignment between government initiatives and the broader national plan, and deeper local private sector participation are the focus,” he said.
Also speaking on the need for a new policy, a telecom consultant, Mr. Adewale Adeoye, said broadband plans remain important because they provide direction for government agencies, investors and private operators.
- “The industry needs a new plan, but more importantly, an executable one. A lot of actions highlighted in the NNBP 2020-2025 were not executed, and that explains why many of the targets set could not be met,” he said.
NCC says new plan is underway
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Communications Commission has already signalled that a successor plan is being developed.
Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Engr. Abraham Oshadami, said the regulator is reviewing the performance of the previous plan and assessing areas for improvement.
- “We are carrying out a review of what happened and how it will improve on what NNBP achieved. So all those inputs from those assessments will be part of what the current review will take into consideration. So NNBP has not ended, we are coming up with a new plan,” Oshadami said.
His remarks suggest the next framework may be shaped by lessons learned from the 2020 to 2025 cycle.
More insights
The National Broadband Plan 2020 to 2025 was introduced to deepen broadband penetration, improve access, reduce connectivity gaps and support Nigeria’s broader digital economy ambitions.
- While the plan recorded some gains during its lifespan, operators say several of its key promises were either delayed or incompletely delivered, leaving the market still constrained by old structural challenges.
- These include difficulties around Right of Way approvals for fibre deployment, multiple taxation concerns, high cost of infrastructure rollout, poor power supply and weak incentives for operators to expand into underserved communities.
- According to the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, some states, despite officially waiving right-of-way fees, impose hidden costs such as education taxes and highway levies, which discourage investment.
Telecom companies have repeatedly argued that inconsistent state-level charges and approval processes continue to delay fibre projects and raise deployment costs
Building blocks emerging ahead of new plan
Despite concerns over the old framework, ATCON said some elements of the next broadband phase are already beginning to emerge.
- “The encouraging thing is that some of the building blocks for the next phase are already emerging, even ahead of a formal plan,” the association’s President said.
He cited Project BRIDGE as one of the initiatives already delivering part of what was envisioned under the former broadband strategy.
He also referenced the Federal Government’s ongoing push to support the deployment of about 7,000 telecom towers to expand network reach into underserved and unserved areas where operators have historically faced weak commercial incentives.
The initiative is expected to improve access in rural and low-income communities where private capital alone has often been insufficient to justify rollout.
While acknowledging these efforts, telecom operators say isolated projects will not be enough without a coordinated national structure that connects them into one measurable broadband strategy.
- “However, what is missing is a coherent framework that ties everything together: fibre, towers, satellite, policy, funding, and execution,” the ATCON President said.
What you should know
Aside from the overall 70% penetration target, the expired Broadband Plan also set several targets for the country, most of which were missed.
- Going by the timelines of the Plan, broadband penetration in the country was expected to be at 50% at the end of 2023. That was just achieved at the end of 2025.
Recognizing the high cost of smartphones as one of the access barriers to broadband in the country, the Plan developed by key experts in the ICT industry appointed by the government, recommends that the country should have at least one smartphone assembly plant by 2023.
- This was to ensure the price of an entry-level smartphone in the country could be as low as N18,000.
- However, the country currently has no local smartphone assembly plant, while the costs of smartphones in the country have skyrocketed as a result of the Naira devaluation. The cheapest smartphone in the market currently sells for more than N100,000.
- According to the Plan, part of the milestones to measure progress includes that 70% of telecom subscriptions should be on 4G by 2023.
However, NCC’s data shows that only 52.95% of the 179 million active mobile subscriptions in the country were on 4G as of December 2025.
