Airtel Nigeria is billed to take home spectrum licence for deployment of the fifth generation (5G) network in the country as it emerged as the sole bidder in the second-round spectrum auction.
This happened after another company failed to pay a deposit to continue with the auction, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said on Wednesday.
NCC, Nigeria’s independent telecoms regulator, said Standard Network & Connections Limited failed to pay the required “intention to bid deposit,” leaving Airtel the only bidder.
NCC issued the country’s first 5G licences to MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications last year in December after the companies each paid $273.6 million in a bidding that commenced on a reserve price of $197.4 million.
The regulator then pegged $273.6 million as the reserve price to auction the second round of the 5G spectrum with a tenure of 10 years.
Recall that at a recent forum on the information memorandum for the aborted second auction, Airtel had requested to acquire the spectrum outside auction at the same price as MTN and Mafab Communications.
Airtel justified its request saying that getting one of the two 3.5GHz spectrums by administrative assignment would ensure it does not participate in another auction where the licence ultimately goes to the highest bidder.
The company pointed out that its participation in the first auction made the process competitive because MTN and Mafab would have been issued the licences at the reserve price of $197.4 million if there was no a third bidder.
Reacting, NCC, however, had turned down Airtel’s request, noting that though it was a fair request, the process has been set out and the spectrum would be allocated through auction only.
This however changed as no Airtel eventually turned out to be the only bidder in the auction, which has now been aborted, thus getting the spectrum at the reserve price.
