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2019 NIWBQR Summary

LTE Deployment in Nigeria.

In 2019, LTE coverage extended to many cities beyond the Lagos metropolis. All of the four major Communications Service Providers (9Mobile, Airtel, Globacom and MTN) now have 4G LTE coverage in substantial parts of cities such as  Ibadan, Abuja, Benin, Warri, Port Harcourt, Akure, Ado Ekiti, Sapele, Ugheli, Maiduguri  and others. NIWBQR reports are available for Port Harcourt, Ado Ekiti and Ibadan while our coverage quality maps are available for most, if not all, of the areas with LTE coverage.

Sample areas with LTE coverage
Geographic AreaLTE Coverage provider    
MTNAirtelGlobacom9MobileState
Lagos IslandxxxxLagos
Lagos MainlandxxxxLagos
Victoria IslandxxxxLagos
IkoyixxxxLagos
IbadanxxxOyo
Port HarcourtxxxxRivers
AbujaxxxxFCT
IkoroduxLagos
ShagamuxLagos
Ijebu OdexOgun
Ile IfexOyo
Ado EkitixEkiti
AkurexOndo
Benin CityxEdo
WarrixDelta
UyoxxAkwa Ibom
MaidugurixBorno
OkenexKogi
AdonkoloxKogi
LokojaxKogi
AbajixFCT
AiyetoroxOgun
SapelexDelta
CalabarxCross River
GbokoxBenue
MarkurdixBenue
EnuguxEnugu
NsukkaxEnugu
AbaxAbia
AbakalikixEbonyi
JosxPlateau
GwagwaladaxFCT
KadunaxKaduna
KanoxKano
ZariaxKaduna

High packet delay latency continues to be a problem. Outside of Lagos, where  MTN maintains good latency numbers, as shown in figure 1 below, latency remains high in all the networks.

Latency in secondsMTNAirtelGlo9Mobile
Port Harcourt0.7870.8151.0711.253
Akure1.3383.3193.1490.738
Ibadan0.8440.6110.7862.533
Banana Island0.1670.9412.9063.409
Ikeja0.0960.3950.9561.602
Lekki Phase 10.1340.2461.0461.311
Victoria Island0.0340.2851.5360.914

Fig 1

During the year, we introduced a new service, Radio Frequency Coverage Quality mapping. Our coverage quality maps show MTN with best coverage quality in most covered areas while Airtel has the worst. However these maps alone do not tell the whole story.  Airtel, despite having the worst coverage quality, ranks second only to MTN in our NIWBQR reports which are based on the ranking of overall quality of 4G LTE service as determined by our ranking criteria.

The best all-around performance from every service provider occurs in Lagos. There, every Service Provider have substantial LTE coverage with MTN coverage quality being highest. Glo and 9Mobile have good RF coverage quality while Airtel has overall worst coverage quality even though it comes second in our NIWBQR rankings.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Substantial progress was made in expanding LTE coverage in Nigeria in 2019. That progress occurred mostly during the first half of the year. It seems to have plateaued by the end of the year.  MTN and Airtel are the two network operators providing most of the increased coverage footprint.

To view additional details which is available on this website. Select NIWBQR on the menu bar, then the location of interest. Click here to request additional information for the cluster of interest.