Nigeria’s digital economy is scaling fast. Is spectrum ready?

Nigeria’s data boom is no longer a future idea. It is already happening, as people bank, learn, trade, work and access healthcare online, all of it running on spectrum, the finite resource that carries wireless signals. Demand for data keeps climbing, and the real issue now is not whether the digital economy will expand, but whether spectrum policy can move fast enough to keep pace.

The economic stakes are well established. Research by the World Bank and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) shows that a 10% increase in broadband penetration in developing countries can lift GDP by about 1.3% and reduce rural poverty within two to three years. These gains spill across sectors—from agriculture and logistics to finance, education, and public health—by lowering transaction costs and expanding market access.

Nigeria’s own experience mirrors this pattern. As broadband penetration reached 50.58% in November 2025, digital services expanded rapidly, fintech and content creation scaled, and platform-based markets deepened. Yet even this progress may soon look modest compared to what lies ahead.

At a public inquiry on the Spectrum Roadmap 2025–2030 in January 2026, Aminu Maida, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), bluntly framed the challenge.

“Our national ambitions are growing: we want faster speeds, wider coverage, better service quality, stronger innovation, and greater inclusion,” he said.

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Those ambitions are colliding with surging demand. Nigeria has 177 million active mobile subscriptions as of November 2025, projected to reach at least 220 million by 2030. But people alone will not drive future traffic. Fifth-generation (5G) networks, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) deployments, smart infrastructure, and connected industrial systems are set to multiply data consumption well beyond historical trends. Over the past three years, Nigeria’s data traffic has already grown by about 40%, and the curve is expected to steepen sharply.

This surge presents a double-edged reality. GSMA estimates suggest Nigeria’s mobile digital economy contributed roughly ₦33 trillion ($22.4 billion) to GDP in 2023. By 2030, that figure could rise to ₦83 trillion ($58.7 billion) when direct operator activity, ecosystem effects, and productivity spillovers are taken into account. But without timely spectrum availability and efficient use, demand could quickly overwhelm capacity, resulting in congestion, slower speeds, deteriorating service quality, and stalled investment.

The risk is not theoretical. Around 23 million Nigerians remain unconnected, and without deliberate policy intervention, the gap between connected urban centres and underserved communities could widen as advanced technologies concentrate capacity in areas with the highest returns.

It is against this backdrop that the NCC has introduced its Spectrum Roadmap for 2026–2030. The telco regulator has positioned the roadmap as an economic and development instrument, one designed to provide predictability in spectrum planning, allocation, and pricing, while aligning wireless policy with national goals around inclusion, innovation, and resilience.

“Essentially, the Roadmap is a high-level document that outlines the Commission’s strategy for spectrum management, aimed at providing a degree of certainty to the industry as to how the Commission intends to plan, manage, and optimise the use of radio frequency spectrum; a scarce and valuable national resource,” Maida told .

Although it stops short of detailed implementation plans, the roadmap outlines short-, medium-, and long-term actions for 2026-2030, with execution through updated licensing frameworks, auctions, and regulatory instruments.

The roadmap rests on four strategic pillars. The first is closing the digital divide. Low-band spectrum below 1 GHz, valued for its long reach and superior indoor penetration, is central to this objective. By prioritising these bands alongside satellite and other non-terrestrial networks, the NCC aims to make broadband deployment viable in rural and hard-to-reach areas where fibre alone is not commercially attractive. Alternative backhaul solutions, including millimetre-wave links and emerging satellite models, are intended to reduce deployment costs and accelerate rollout.

This reflects a broader policy shift: treating spectrum less as a short-term revenue source and more as a lever for social and economic inclusion, with targeted government interventions where markets fall short.

The second pillar focuses on sustaining market-driven investment. Consultations with operators during the roadmap’s development revealed a consistent concern: regulatory certainty. Clear timelines, predictable rules, and technology-neutral licensing matter more to investors than one-off incentives. In response, the NCC is committing to flexible licensing, earlier release of future bands, and closer alignment with global standards. These measures are designed to support the Federal Ministry of Communications’ ambition to increase broadband investment by 300% to 500% in the coming years.

Quality of experience forms the third pillar. While 4G networks now cover about 85% of Nigeria’s population, actual user experience often falls short. Median 4G speeds hover around 20–22 Mbps. By 2030, the NCC aims to raise this to 65-100 Mbps, expand 4G coverage to 98% of the population, and extend 5G coverage to at least half of Nigerians. Achieving this will require not just more spectrum, but better spectrum efficiency, denser networks, stronger fibre backbones, and timely access to contiguous bands.

Some of this work is already underway. To improve utilisation and relieve immediate capacity constraints, the NCC approved a series of spectrum trades and reassignments in 2025, including the reallocation of approximately 50 MHz of previously underutilised spectrum for network expansion.

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The impact has been measurable. Independent monthly reports since September 2025 show improvements in network performance, with one notable example being Globacom. After securing an additional contiguous 10 MHz through reassignment, Globacom’s average 4G download speeds increased from about 9.5 Mbps to roughly 15 Mbps by November–December 2025, illustrating how spectrum availability can directly translate into a better user experience.

The fourth pillar centres on innovation. The NCC’s general authorisation framework allows new services and technologies to be tested before detailed regulations are finalised, enabling regulators to adapt as the market evolves. Spectrum planning under this pillar spans terrestrial broadband, satellite services, IoT applications, autonomous systems, and emerging future use cases.

Across all pillars, five guiding principles run: long-term planning, efficient use of spectrum, fair and competitive pricing, technology neutrality, and the development of secondary markets where trading and sharing can improve utilisation. Practical tools include regular spectrum audits to identify idle bands, refined trading guidelines, enhanced monitoring, and continuous stakeholder engagement.

By 2030, the scale of the challenge becomes stark. Average monthly data consumption per user is expected to rise from about 5.8 GB today to roughly 12 GB, pushing annual traffic towards 32 exabytes. Meeting that demand will require an estimated 3.3 GHz of spectrum for mobile broadband and up to 30 GHz for satellite services. Without early allocation of contiguous bands and transparent planning, sustaining growth at that scale will be difficult.

Execution, therefore, matters as much as vision. To prevent the roadmap from becoming aspirational, the NCC has embedded monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, including biannual utilisation and rollout reports, annual public disclosures, and structured stakeholder reviews.

Rather than relying solely on nominal coverage statistics, the Commission plans to assess outcomes using three layers of evidence: operator network data, user-centric measurements from platforms such as Ookla and Wadaro, and independent third-party drive testing. Together, these are meant to provide what Maida described as “a multi-dimensional, verifiable, and accountable framework” for judging whether spectrum policy is actually improving everyday connectivity.

At its core, Nigeria’s spectrum challenge comes down to a simple economic equation: data, supported by the right infrastructure and policy, becomes GDP. The country’s data boom is coming fast. Whether the spectrum can keep up and whether that growth translates into inclusive prosperity will depend on sustained coordination among regulators, operators, and policymakers. If that alignment holds, the invisible infrastructure of spectrum could become one of the most powerful drivers of Nigeria’s economic transformation by 2030.

Frank Eleanya

Senior Reporter,

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