After pulling out from the 3.5 gigahitz (GHz) spectrum auction license for 5G deployment on Monday in Abuja, Airtel Nigeria says it still committed to driving broadband capacity in the various markets it operates.
The Group Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Africa, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, who stated this in a statement confirmed that the Nigerian subsidiary of the company pulled out of the auction after submitting its final bid of $270m.
While commending the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for a transparent 5G auction, the Airtel Africa CEO, said the business case for 5G across all sub-Saharan markets is evolving, and Airtel remain committed to driving broadband capacity in our various markets.
“We will continue to closely track the 5G ecosystem over the next several years, in particular the availability of affordable 5G devices and relevant use cases. Airtel Africa retains ample capacity, spread across various spectrum bands in Nigeria and its other markets to continue to meet the growing data demands of our customers for many years to come, with several potential routes available to the business to deliver even greater capacities, cost- effectively, in the long run,” the statement reads.