EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
Vol. 3, No. 10, October 2018
Optimization Opportunities in Nigeria Telecoms
Terrestrial Network - A Review
Toluwanimi O. Akinyemi, and Olayinka J. Ramonu

Abstract—This study investigates into the possibilities and
opportunities in Nigeria telecoms terrestrial network. The
current
backbone
network
map of
two
mobile
telecommunication operators in Nigeria have been analysed for
the purpose of determining the suitable fibre network
coverage. A proposal has been drawn on the workability of a
single national fibre network coverage resulting to increased
quality of services at a lower cost to the consumers.
Index Terms—Fibre; Nigeria Telecoms; Optimization;
Terrestrial Network.
I. INTRODUCTION
Communication is one of the attributes of every living
organism and it is exhibited in different forms in higher
organisms. Without communication among individuals,
families, organizations, states or nations, the world would
have been very complicated. Telecommunications can be
broadly referred to as the exchange or transmission of
information (signs, signals, messages, words, writings,
images and sounds or intelligence of any nature) over
significant distances by electronic means (either by
electromagnetic radiation or electrically over physical media
such as cables) and refers to all types of voice, data and
video transmission.
Telecommunications facilities in Nigeria were first
established in 1886 by the colonial administration. These
were geared towards discharging administrative functions
rather than the provision of a robust telecommunications
network such that the total number of telephone lines at
independence in 1960 was only 18,724 for a population
estimated at about 40 million people. Between 1960 and
1985, Telecommunications development was characterized
by serious short-falls between planned targets and their
realization, principally because of poor management, lack of
accountability, transparency and low level of executive
capacity. This led to the partial liberalization of the
telecommunications sector between 1992 and 1999 with the
government introducing some reforms which included the
establishment of the Nigeria Communication Commission
via Decree 75 of 1992 and the licensing of network operator
service providers in1996. Despite the huge potentials
offered by the Nigerian telecom market, progress was slow
due to political uncertainties and perceived policy
inconsistencies as NITEL still continued to retain monopoly
power over voice telephony in both national and long
distance international calls. The network was bad, there
were weak infrastructural base, huge unmet demand,
concentration of lines in selected urban centres, slow growth
of subscriber base as well as limited investment. The full
liberalization of the sector ushered in the first Global System
for Mobile Communication (GSM) operator and the award
of the first Digital Mobile License (DML) in 2001.Since
then, the sector has witnessed an unprecedented surge in
investments (with over $18 billion in investments from 2001
till date). The entry of new operators has also deepened the
competition in the sector with the teeming subscriber base
better for it [1]-[3]. Today there are over 150million active
subscribers riding on the GSM technology in Nigeria, each
of which subscribes for voice or data services [4]. An
overview of the Nigerian telecommunications industry data
is shown below [5].
Fig. 1. Subscribers and Teledensity Data
From the figure above the number of subscribers
increased monthly up till it reached 162.7 million in June
2018 also NCC used the last census figure in 2006 which
was 140 million to calculate the teledensity.
Fig. 2. Market Share among the Four Main Operators
Published on October 23, 2018.
T. O. Akinyemi is with Esep – Le Berger University, Cotonou Benin
Republic (e-mail: engrtolu@gmail.com).
O. J. Ramonu is with the Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria.
(e-mail: john.ramonu@federalpolyilaro.edu.ng).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejers.2018.3.10.941
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EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
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VoLTE technology services. This can be improved upon
with a resilient nationwide fibre network.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Fig. 3. Progression of Subscribe Base and TeleDensity from 2002-2017
A significant amount of research has focused on the
impact of the liberalization of the telecommunications sector
in Nigeria. Much of this research have not focused on fibre
network sharing by telecommunications operators in
Nigeria, with each operator building and owning their
respective terrestrial fibre network across the nation and in
most cases these fibres passes through the same path/route
resulting in high cost of doing business, high data prices, the
inability of the current telecoms operators to have a cellular
network coverage spanning throughout the nooks and
cranny of the nation and the failure to deploy the vast
amount of bandwidth arriving at the landing ports to the
various rural and urban regions across the country
necessitates the need for a National fibre network plan to be
regulated by the government, built in partnership with the
private sector and shared to all existing and future telecoms
operators thereby delivering data and voice services at
affordable rates and at high speed, while having lots of
institutions and agencies connected to the national backbone
network and a better utilization of the bandwidth arriving at
the nation’s port from international service providers.
The general objective of this research paper is to analyse
the current backbone network map of two mobile
telecommunications operators in Nigeria for the purpose of
determining their current fibre network coverage and to
propose the workability of a single terrestrial fibre network
leading to increased quality of service and other commercial
benefits as well as analysing the operational issues related to
an individually owned backbone network.
Fig. 4. Market Share by Technology [5]
From Fig. 4 above, subscribers in Nigeria have enjoyed
the GSM technology to the fullest but have accessed around
20% of VoIP, CDMA and Wireless/Wired Fixed Line
Technology services as well as below 20% for LTE and
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejers.2018.3.10.941
It is evident that advancement in telecommunications is
presently among the driving forces of globalisation and the
rapid growth of the global economy. A significant amount
of research work, findings and discoveries about
communication costs in Africa, increasing capital and
operational expenditures (capex & opex) on telecom assets
and infrastructures, inherent challenges facing further
telecommunications development in Nigeria as well as the
broadband industry structure for Nigeria are reported in
literatures [6]-[11]. Research findings about telecom
infrastructure sharing and its impact on cost, quality of
service derived by customer/consumers can be found in the
following literatures [12]-[15]. Research efforts on the state
of national and metro-fibre optic network connectivity in
Nigeria, the advantages of fibre optics, Morocco national
fibre network and Saudi Arabia National Fibre Network
connectivity can be accessed in literatures [16]-[19]. It was
observed that fibre optic network capacity in Nigeria, is
concentrated mainly in major cities of the country as rural
areas are often left out. Development of fibre-optic
backbone networks has occurred predominantly within state
capitals and on inter-state routes such that all the 36 state
capitals and FCT are covered, while metro fibre network are
largely limited to few state capitals. This reveals that there is
more development to be done in the area of backbone
penetration within the nook and cranny of Nigeria and to its
vast population in order to harness the full potentials of
telecommunication in Nigeria. Some African countries are
already walking in this path among whom are Morocco and
Tanzania. Morocco retains one of the most advanced
telecommunications markets in Africa, and also has one of
the highest mobile penetration rates in the region. The Saudi
National Fibre Network (SNFN) offers one of the newest
fibre optic network technologies with access to all major
cities and covering 99% of their population. Thus
commercial / residential buildings, educational and health
facilities, banks, government departments and enterprises'
offices are connected in a country of almost same land mass
as Nigeria.
Nigeria is not too far away from having a national fibre
network and data coverage that can span through the nooks
and cranny of the country at imaginably low costs. This can
be achieved through a government backed policy
enthusiastic about the need for a national fibre network and
relaxation of some bureaucracy inhibiting interested
investors, these includes access of passage of fibre cables
without hindrances by any community, reduction of high
cost of obtaining right of way and other permits in various
states, long-term financing opportunities, increased power
supply (which reduces cost of power to base stations, towers
and offices), legislations that makes telecoms infrastructures
to be observed as critical national infrastructures thereby
curbing theft and vandalism to telecoms infrastructures etc.
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III. CURRENT BACKBONE NETWORK MAP
A backbone is a set of paths that local or regional
networks connect to for long-distance interconnection. The
connection points are known as network nodes. Network
backbones are designed to maximize the reliability and
performance
of
large-scale,
long-distance
data
communications.
Fig. 7. MTN Nigeria BackBone Map
Considering the fibre network maps above, MTN Nigeria
(the biggest telecoms operator in the country) and Globacom
(Second largest operator) collectively have fibre presence
spanning through major urban areas and inter-city routes. A
national fibre network can be achieved with the merger of
these two individual backbone network and connections
with areas not yet covered by both network maps.
Fig. 5. Glo Fiber Network [22]
It can be depicted that globacom has an optic fiber
backbone network spanning across major towns in the
country.
Fig. 6. Glo BackBone Network [22]
“Globacom high speed optic fibre network spans more
than 10000 km. The network covers all the major cities–
Lagos, Ibadan, Benin, Warri, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Zaria,
Kaduna, Kano, Abeokuta etc. The network is configured in
multiple ‘self-healing’ rings to ensure error free service.
Besides this, Globacom has established Metro rings across
all the major cities of Nigeria. The backbone and metro
rings of Globacom are equipped with Single Mode 96 F
Optic Cable with ITU-T G.652 standard. It is armoured
cable for extra protection from rodent. Globacom has a
Microwave network that practically spans the whole of
Nigeria. On the SDH network the capacity is a minimum
STM2 with 1+1 redundancy” [22] yet much still needs to be
done in optimizing the various opportunities that can be
derived from a robust terrestrial fibre network.
A. Limitations of Individually Owned Fibre Backbone
Nigeria has more than enough broadband capacities from
several submarine cables at the shores of the country despite
these, majority of the Nigerian populace are not enjoying the
benefit. This is blamed on the poor utilization of the cables,
absence of distribution and last mile infrastructure required
to move available bandwidth capacity across the length and
breadth of Nigeria. If Nigeria is to enjoy the full benefits of
broadband, regulatory interventions are required to address
these challenges. Comparing Nigeria with other countries
like Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco or Saudi Arabia these
countries have gone far in Internet access penetration
because the government of those countries built a
nationwide infrastructure backbone and allowed the private
sector to run it at a determined low cost with every Internet
Service Provider (ISPs) having equal access to available
broadband capacities. In contrast to Nigeria, where each
telecom operator builds its own fibre network infrastructure
and fix prices at will which in most cases are very high
because the operators have to add the cost of building their
own infrastructure backbone.
B. Existing Fibre Network Design Limitations
The factors contributing to the limitations of the existing
network design included:
 Low capacity of network – it is less than 4G and the
transmission medium is LAN
 Same path/route Design – almost 99% of the existing
networks transverse through the same route or path
 Old technology based network – the technology used
are old, mostly above 50 years and the designs are
non-self-healing design networks
 Unreliable Protection Scheme – Due to the usage of
old technology protection scheme
IV. NATIONAL FIBRE NETWORK MODEL
To achieve the need for a long-term widespread
deployment of a robust nationwide comprehensive fibre
infrastructure, the following salient guiding principles are
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejers.2018.3.10.941
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EJERS, European Journal of Engineering Research and Science
Vol. 3, No. 10, October 2018
important. (i) Nationwide fibre penetration - This can be
achieved by extending the backbone fibre infrastructure
network beyond state capitals into metropolitan areas in
Nigeria bringing it as close as possible to potential
customers. (ii) Non-discriminatory and open access–
duplication of fibre infrastructure on some routes while
there is lack of access to fibre infrastructure in other areas.
Most operators also build fibre network only in
commercially viable areas; the industry fibre deployment is
concentrated and sub-optimal leaving large parts of the
country including metropolitan areas without any access to
fibre optic infrastructure. Even where fibre is available,
there is little wholesale capacity available in the market on
open access basis and at reasonable prices. (iii) Optimized
Deployment Strategy –Existing stakeholders should be
consulted for their deployment phasing and structuring a
sustainable business model that benefits the whole of the
industry while achieving the objectives of a greater
broadband penetration towards stronger economic impact
[20].
TABLE I: ESTIMATED COVERAGE OF FIBRE INFRASTRUCTURE [21]
Category
Area Description
Estimated Coverage
Category 1
Fibre Backbone to All
State Capitals and FCT
100% (37 of 37)
Category 2
Metropolitan Area
Networks in Cities
10% (mostly Lagos,
Abuja and Port Harcourt)
Category 3
FTTB, Fibre to the Base
Station
10% of all Base Stations
Category 4
FTTC, Fibre to the
Cabinet, buildings or
estates
unknown (e.g. 774 local
governments)
Nigeria is made up of a total area of 923,768 km2 and
divided into 774 local government areas, 36 states and the
Federal Capital Territory, which is further divided into six
geo political zones or regions. Local fiber rings are proposed
for each local government with each ring covering a
100km2 distance with a point of access within the 100km2 ,
the number of rings per local government depends on its
land masss. Metro rings are formed from the aggregation of
local rings, seven regional fibre rings can be constructed one
for each geopolitical zone or region and the federal capacity
territory. From this regional rings an aggregation into a
Single or Dual National fibre rings can be achieved. An
example of the layout of a local fibre ring grid is shown
below.
Fig. 8: Proposed LocalFiber ring Layout [20]
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejers.2018.3.10.941
V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The aims of a National Terrestrial Network are to
promote pervasive broadband deployment within the rural
and urban areas in Nigeria; increased broadband adoption
and usage; and ensuring availability of broadband services
at affordable prices to almost all the population within
Nigeria or at least 95% of the population, currently about
65% of the population are covered by the GSM Technology,
meaning all or almost all of the active population have been
covered but the same cannot be said of broadband
penetration. Clearly, Broadband has a significant
transformative effect on how people live, work,
communicate, informed about global trends or observe
leisure. It empowers the individual user with previously
unimaginable capabilities and global reach. Broadband is
like opportunities delivered by the discovery of electricity.
Thus opportunities abound for a National Fibre Network
with reach within the nooks and cranny of the country, with
99% availability coupled with the use of latest technologies
such as Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM)
Technology, Synchronous Digital Hierarchy(SDH) etc.,
self-healing design network, resilient and able to serve at
least 95% of the population and institutions in dire need of
high speed broadband internet at lower cost. Thus turning
Nigeria into the giant of Africa it was truly meant to be.
Government needs to support investments in the
telecommunications industry with business-friendly
regulations as well as assist the Private Sector in driving
pervasive access to Broadband. The Private Sector must also
deliver not just on basic reach and penetration, but also on
Quality of Service. It is only in doing this that all Nigerians
will truly feel the positive impact and full benefit of
Broadband.
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Born in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Akinyemi
Toluwanimi Oluwadara holds a B. Eng. Degree
from Ekiti State University, Nigeria and a MSc
Degree in Mechanical Engineering (Thermo-Fluid
Option) from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He currently works with Esep Le Berger
Universite in Cotonou, Benin Republic. He has
published other academic articles in the areas of
renewable and non-renewable energy and nanofluid.
Author’s formal
photo
Ramonu, Olayinka John Holds a Master’s Degree
in Mechanical Engineering (Thermo-Fluid Option)
from The University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
He is currently a LECTURER in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering, The Federal Polytechnic,
Ilaro, Ogun state, Nigeria. He has published other
academics articles in reputable journals.
Author’s formal
photo
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.24018/ejers.2018.3.10.941
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