2025: How Nigerians paid more for data, calls despite network disruptions – Report

By Progress Godfrey

ABUJA — In 2025, Nigerians faced sharply higher costs for mobile voice calls, SMS, and data, yet regardless of the heavier spending, network quality and connectivity frequently fell short, leaving subscribers frustrated many times in the year.

Despite operators citing economic pressures and regulators approving sizable tariff increases, service delivery continued to highlight a widening gap between cost and value in one of the country’s most crucial sectors.

In January 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) approved a 50 percent increase in telecom tariffs, the first major adjustment since 2013, allowing operators to raise the cost of calls, SMS and mobile data. Under the new structure, the minimum price for voice calls rose from N6.40 to N9.60 per minute; average cost of phone calls from N11 to N16.50 per minute; SMS costs from N4 to N6, and the average cost of 1GB from N287.50 to about N431.25.

The NCC justified the increase as necessary to align pricing with rising operational costs, while insisting that rates remain fair and that operators should deliver tangible service improvements.

But despite the hike, patronage remained robust. By October, MTN Nigeria Communications Plc and Airtel Nigeria had reported a combined profit of about N1.83 trillion, driven by surging data consumption, and the rebound of their fintech and voice segments.

MTN Nigeria’s nine-month 2025 results showed N750.2 billion profit after tax, a 245.7 percent turnaround from the N514.9 billion loss recorded year on year in 2024.

In the nine-month period, data revenue which was the major source of growth, climbed to N1.98 trillion, showing a 73.2 percent rise aided by rising smartphone penetration which grew by 65.1 percent, as well as increased 4G capacity and a 36.3 percent surge in data traffic. Average usage per subscriber climbed to 13.2 GB per month, while the home broadband user-base rose to 4 million.

Also, voice revenue posted N1.35 trillion at 41.9 percent rise. In fintech, the company’s revenue jumped 72.5 percent to N131.6 billion, with active MoMo wallets reaching 2.9 million and deposits up 80.5 percent.

Airtel Nigeria on the other hand, recorded N1.08 trillion profit within the same period. It also posted significant growth in data with monthly use per customer rising to about 10.1 GB. Smartphone penetration reached 52.8 percent, and smartphone data usage climbed to 12.7 GB.

These results show that patronage grew, even more in 2025, even as recent data released by the NCC also show that Nigerians consumed 1.236 million terabytes of mobile data in November, the highest monthly figure ever recorded, an increase from 1.235 million TB estimated in October.

Generally, 2025 showed strong growth in data usage as the November trajectory was not an isolation. Data usage grew from around 983,000 TB in April to 1.044 million TB in June, crossing the 1 million mark. Similarly, July surged to 1.131 million TB, while August clinched 1.152 million TB.

Over 40,000 disruptions recorded in eight months

While the growth results paint a bright picture, the actual quality of experience did not follow an upward trajectory as disruptions persisted with a total of 41,625 cases. Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida at a business Roundtable in Abuja, said these disruptions continued to pose a challenge.

According to him, “Between January and August 2025 alone, Nigeria recorded 19,384 fibre cut incidents, 3,241 cases of equipment theft, and over 19,000 cases of denials of access to telecom sites.

“Together, these disruptions have caused prolonged outages, revenue losses, increased security costs, and delayed service restoration. They demonstrate why infrastructure protection must be at the centre of our collective agenda.”

Nine States suffered disruptions in one week

Various degrees of disruptions dealt a major blow to Nigerians as nine States suffered poor services during the first week of June 2025, the Nigerian Communications Commission’s live incident portal revealed. The interruptions followed several fibre cut incidents, affecting leading operators such as Airtel, MTN, 9Mobile, and Globacom.

The affected states included Rivers, Katsina, Lagos, Enugu, Benue, Anambra, Imo, Abia, and Akwa Ibom. Of the nine reported incidents, seven were caused by fibre cuts, which disrupted voice calls, SMS, USSD services, and mobile data across the impacted states.

Also, poor network quality affected Abuja, the nation’s capital in December, where individuals and businesses suffered the impact. However, the NCC attributed it to diesel supply disruptions that affected key telecom infrastructure. The regulator said the outages and degraded service were caused by interruptions in diesel deliveries to IHS Nigeria Limited, the firm that powers base stations for major operators like MTN and Airtel in the Federal Capital Territory.

The NCC linked the fuel supply issues to actions by the National Oil and Gas Suppliers Association (NOGASA), which impeded deliveries to critical sites, leading to widespread quality-of-service complaints from subscribers. The commission stressed the importance of reliable power for network stability.

President Tinubu had in June 2024 signed an Executive Order (CNII Order, 2024) criminalising damage to Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII), but even so, telecom vandalism and theft persist, causing significant service disruptions, with operators reporting massive fibre cuts and access denials weekly, highlighting the need for better enforcement, community engagement, and proactive security measures beyond just legislation to protect crucial ICT assets.

Moreso, the seventh edition of Surfshark’s Digital Quality of Life Index (DQL) 2025, ranked Nigeria’s internet quality at 117th globally. Though the Digital Quality of Life for Nigeria slightly improved to 97th globally in 2025 (previously 100th), the country still lagged behind South Africa (75th) and Kenya (95th)

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