New fibre, same problem: Nigeria’s 90,000km broadband push faces ISP apathy

…As NCC targets 2 ISPs per state to tackle connectivity divide

Nigeria’s new plan to add 90,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cable to its existing 35,000km backbone, marks one of Africa’s largest broadband infrastructure drives. 
Yet, the government’s ambitious plan may not deliver its aspired gains unless regulators tackle why Internet Service Providers (ISPs) still refuse to venture outside commercial cities.

Nigeria already has about 35,000km to 40,000 km of fibre‐optic backbone running across the country. Despite this substantial physical infrastructure, ISPs remain heavily clustered in just three metro areas: Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. For instance, in early 2023, 19 new ISPs were licensed by NCC, but 10 of them were in Abuja, five in Lagos, one in Edo State, one in Kaduna, one in Ondo, and one in Adamawa State.

Rural and semi-urban areas remain largely underserved, leaving millions of Nigerians in many states with little to no broadband access, and where available, connections are often painfully slow and unreliable.

Industry observers say the problem isn’t lack of fibre in many areas; it is lack of incentives, high operating costs, regulatory and fiscal burdens, rights of way issues, and economic risk that prevent ISPs from expanding into rural or low-income communities.

To them, laying more fibre will have limited impact if underlying bottlenecks are not addressed. 

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Putting it in perspective, Oyaje Idoko, founder and CEO of Layer3, speaking at a Moonshot panel titled “Closing the Coverage Gap: Last-Mile Access in the Age of AI & Cloud,” moderated by Frank Eleanya, senior reporter, TechCabal, said Nigeria’s broadband challenge is less about infrastructure and more about economic viability.

Idoko argues that the private sector cannot sustainably operate in environments where consumers lack the income or infrastructure to support digital services.

“As a private investor, before we extend service to a new community, we must ask: is it viable? If a community cannot afford the service, or if power is unreliable, the business won’t survive,” he said.

This is a stark truth of Nigeria’s connectivity landscape: ISPs are profit-driven entities, not public utilities. Without a sustainable business model, few will take the risk of expanding into low-income or sparsely populated regions.

 

In cities like Lagos and Abuja, where data consumption is high and corporate clients abound, ISPs can generate steady revenue. But in towns where disposable income is low, operators struggle to recover costs from customers who may not afford N10,000 monthly for reliable broadband.

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Compounding this problem are high operational costs, including diesel-powered base stations, frequent fibre repairs, and expensive right-of-way fees imposed by state governments. These costs make rural expansion unattractive unless government steps in with incentives or shared infrastructure.

Idoko pointed to India and Kenya as examples of economies where government-led fibre rollout created a level playing field. “When the government provides shared broadband infrastructure, private players can build on it. That’s what drives inclusion,” he noted.

While Idoko focused on the economics of expansion, Josephine Sarouk, the managing director of Bayobab Nigeria, highlighted structural and logistical barriers that prevent existing fibre from delivering real impact.

Sarouk said Nigeria is not short of international bandwidth, adding that with eight submarine cables landing on its shores, the country has more than 400 terabits of capacity, more than enough to serve the entire population if it were effectively distributed.

“The 2Africa subsea cable system adds 180 terabits of capacity and has landed in both Lagos and Akwa Ibom, marking the first time a subsea cable has landed on two different coasts in Nigeria. Bayobab partnered with MTN Nigeria to complete the landing in Lagos, while MainOne handled the landing in Akwa Ibom. So, the challenge isn’t the backbone. It is the last mile, bringing that capacity to homes, schools, and small businesses.

“In other words, Nigeria has broadband abundance at the coast and scarcity inland. The bandwidth that arrives through undersea cables often stops at data centres or regional hubs, unable to reach consumers due to the absence of local distribution networks,” Sarouk explained.

Other challenges are fibre vandalism and power instability, which are two of the biggest culprits, Sarouk stated, adding that, “A significant portion of our annual investment goes into repairing damaged fibre routes rather than building new ones.”

Vandalism, whether through ignorance, theft, or road construction accidents, regularly disrupts national connectivity. Each time a major cable is severed, it can take days, sometimes weeks, to restore service. “When people experience outages, it is often not because the service isn’t available, but because fibre has been cut or there is no power,” Sarouk asserted.

The ripple effect is severe as intermittent power forces ISPs to build expensive redundancy into their systems: multiple routes, extra equipment, and backup power, the managing director stated, adding that, “These extra costs are ultimately passed on to the consumer, further limiting affordability and adoption.”

Another overlooked constraint is device affordability and digital literacy. Sarouk warned that broadband access is meaningless if citizens lack the tools or skills to use it. “Even where connectivity exists, people need affordable smartphones, routers, and computers and the digital skills to use them. Otherwise, infrastructure alone will not drive adoption,” she said.

Nigeria’s average cost of a 4G smartphone, about N80,000 to N120,000, remains out of reach for low-income households. Combined with high data prices and power challenges, digital inclusion remains elusive despite impressive network expansion. “Without addressing Nigeria’s power challenge, even the most sophisticated broadband rollout risks underperformance,” she affirmed.

In response, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), regulator of the telecoms industry, admits that despite substantial investments in national backbone networks over the years, about 80 percent of licensed ISPs remain clustered in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.

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Aminu Maida, the executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said while Nigeria has made measurable progress in mobile coverage and 5G deployment, the country’s real connectivity problem is no longer access, it is adoption and affordability. “Across Sub-Saharan Africa, over 700 million people live within mobile broadband coverage, yet millions remain offline. This is not only about connectivity; it’s about affordability, digital literacy, access to relevant local content, and even language,” Maida said. 

He noted that Nigeria has an estimated 15 million households, yet fewer than one million fixed broadband subscriptions. The implication, he said, is that mobile networks alone cannot sustain the digital economy Nigeria is trying to build.

To address this, Maida said the NCC is reforming the broadband market to make fixed broadband and ISP networks more viable, affordable, and widespread. “We currently have about 40,000 kilometres of fibre optic backbone, but nearly 80 per cent of ISPs, are concentrated in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. That must change,” he said.

According to him, the Commission’s target is to ensure that every state in Nigeria has at least two or three ISPs delivering fibre-to-the-home and fibre-to-the-business services, a move expected to spread economic opportunities across regions.

“Relying solely on mobile broadband isn’t sustainable. Even in advanced economies, living your full digital life via mobile is expensive. Nigeria needs a strong fixed-fibre foundation to truly live digital lives in homes, schools, hospitals, and public institutions,” Maida said.

To make last-mile broadband access more affordable, Maida outlined three critical pillars guiding the Commission’s current strategy: market reform, infrastructure protection, and targeted government intervention.

Under the regulatory reform, Maida said NCC has commissioned a study on the wholesale broadband market to ensure fair, open, and non-discriminatory access to existing backbone networks. This reform will lower entry barriers for smaller providers and encourage ISPs to expand services to underserved areas, he asserted.

On infrastructure protection, the EVC commended the recent Executive Order designating telecom infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), a move that legally protects telecom assets against vandalism. “When fibre routes are cut or equipment vandalized, it disrupts education, healthcare, and livelihoods. We are working with the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and engaging communities to raise awareness that damaging telecom infrastructure affects everyone,” he added.

He added that the NCC is also engaging with state governments to address multiple taxation and arbitrary right-of-way charges that increase operators’ costs.

The third pillar involves public-private partnerships through programmes such as Project BRIDGE, a federal initiative to expand broadband to unserved areas and the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), which provides funding support and investment guarantees in low-viability regions.

“These three approaches, reform, protection, and funding, form the backbone of our strategy to bridge Nigeria’s connectivity gap,” Maida said.