While Nigeria’s telecom sector battles several challenges from all fronts, including vandalism, site closures, fibre cuts, multiple taxation and exorbitant Right of Way (RoW) charges, the lack of grid power appears to be the top concern.

As of today, telecom operators are said to spend 30 per cent of their operating expenditure on energy to power their over 40,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) spread across the country.

Speaking at the GITEX Nigeria 2025 conference and exhibition, MTN Nigeria Chief Operating Officer, Ayham Mousa, said the lack of energy to base stations hinders the quality of service, stressing that no operator jokes with low energy supply to sites.

Mousa, who said that while about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of expenses go into power availability across sites, stressed that 70 per cent of downtime is traceable to lack of power, increasing fibre cuts and vandalism.

He equally pointed to the fact that there are still challenges around operators expanding fibre infrastructure in the country, stressing that if there could be hamonisation of RoW charges, telephone services will get to the remotest part of the country.

“One of our main areas where a large portion of our cost goes is to ensure that our network is available everywhere and it gets to a point where 20 per cent of the time is dedicated there. We focus on network availability and network unavailability is when customers feel that the network is down—they can’t make calls, can’t communicate and that is a safety issue because you rely on networks to communicate, whether during emergencies or any situation. 70 per cent of our downtimes are driven by power issues.

“There are also fibre cuts that we face daily. In Nigeria, there are about 40,000km of fibre, which connects all. For MTN, in the last six months, we have seen 5700 fibre cuts. As it is now, there is a need for collaboration on sensitization to educate the citizens on protection of telecom infrastructure”, he added.

Speaking at a recent industry dialogue, NCC’s Executive Vice-Chairman, Dr Aminu Maida, stressed the importance of energy to improving service quality.

Maida said: “The industry consumes over 40 million litres of diesel monthly. With the Dangote refinery now on-stream, we expect some relief. But if we don’t diversify beyond diesel, the sustainability of the sector remains at risk.”

The EVC’s comments reflected a growing concern within government and industry circles, as emphasized by Mousa, that the energy crisis could roll back gains Nigeria has made in broadband penetration, mobile money adoption, and digital inclusion.

To reduce the rate of fibre cuts across the country, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Edo State ICT Agency (ICTA), Eghosa Urhoghide, who feels the pains of the operators, stressed that “once you operate your own fibre network in Nigeria, you are going to experience the cuts. But in Edo State, we have about 1500km of ducts alone.”

“What has helped us in terms of protection are two things. First, there is community engagement to the point that the people in the community feel that the infrastructure is their own, so they must protect it. Secondly, the state and federal government are investing in fibre ducts, such that it takes away the CAPEX.

“To set up a fibre infrastructure takes up about 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the cost and if state governments, with the help of the private sector as well, deploy it, it drops their expenses by a substantial amount. The economies begin to make sense, especially for tier one states and gradually others.”

Urhoghide said there is a need for the governments to revisit the Dig Once Policy to ensure the safety of infrastructure across the country. He said this will stop incessant fibre cuts, vandalism, among others.

According to him, Edo State is working to reduce approval time for some things, including RoW, fibre deployments, among others, to fast-track development in the state.

AT an earlier session of the GITEX Nigeria conference, CEO of MTN Nigeria, Dr Karl Toriola, warned that the country faces a critical shortage of data centre capacity as artificial intelligence (AI) adoption accelerates, with a current gap estimated at 90 megawatts.