The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has fixed the reserve price for its new 5G spectrums at $273.60m for a 10-year licence tenure.
In a memorandum titled ‘Information Memorandum on 3.5 GHz Spectrum Auction’, the NCC said it will auction two 100MHz in the 3.5GHz Spectrum Band.
“The Reserve Price (RP) is the minimum price for one Lot of 100MHz TDD for a ten (10) year licence tenure fixed at Two Hundred and Seventy-Three Million and Six Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only (US$273,600,000.00) or its equivalent in Naira at the prevailing Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rates at the time of the auction.
“The fee for the ten (10) year Spectrum Licence will be determined at the Auction. The Opening Bid will be an increment higher than the Reserve Price in the Opening Round of the Auction.
“A successful bidder at the Auction will be expected to pay a sum equal to the amount of the winning bid minus the IBD, as well as an operational Licence fee (where applicable),” the Commission stated.
The NCC added that a draft Information Memorandum (IM) has been developed to support the attainment of this objective through an auction process.
“The commission will hold a Public Consultation in respect of the draft IM on November 15, 2022,” it said.
“This is in line with the commission’s participatory rule-making process for the communications sector, to give stakeholders and interested parties an opportunity to review and comment on the draft IM before the final document is published.”
The NCC explained that applicants do not have to be licensed network operators in Nigeria but will need a unified access service licence (UASL) if their bid is successful.
In May, the Commission issued final letters of award of 5G licences to MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Limited after they made their full payment of $273.6 million each.
MTN in August rolled out its 5G mobile network but Mafab missed the rollout date and got a five-month extension from the NCC.