Comprehensive overview of trends

This annual report provides a comprehensive overview of trends and developments in Nigeria's telecommunications market. Subjects covered include:

Much of the remaining addressable market is in the country's rural areas where network rollouts and operations are expensive. This, in combination with declining ARPU levels, is forcing the networks to streamline their operations and to develop new revenue streams from services just as third generation mobile broadband, mobile payments/banking, and others. Together the operators are rolling out national fibre backbone networks to support the ever increasing demand for bandwidth.

This gives the network operators the possibility to as well enter the lucrative mobile market pursuant to this agreement a new unified licensing regime and has helped them to secure hundreds of millions of US$ in investments from local and foreign investors.

Nitel's monopoly on international fibre bandwidth via the SAT-3/WASC submarine cable system ended in 2009 when Globacom's Glo-1 cable landed in the country. Additional submarine cables are scheduled to go online in 2011 and 2012. This is set to revolutionise the country's underdeveloped Internet and broadband sector by reducing the cost of international bandwidth by up to 90%.

The fixed-wireless

New powerful players from the fixed-wireless and mobile network operator camps have entered this market with 3G mobile and advanced wireless broadband services just as WiMAX. The Internet Protocol-based then and there generation networks currently being rolled out are enabling converged voice, data/Internet and video services.

VoIP is already carrying the bulk of Nigeria's international voice traffic. Applications just as e-commerce, online banking and e-payments, e-health, e-learning and e-government are rapidly evolving.

2. Telecommunications Market2.1 Background2.2 Mobile market2.3 Fixed-line and fixed-wireless market2.4 Internet and broadband market2.5 Telecom investments

6. Internet Market6.1 Overview 6.2 Internet statistics6.3 Limited availability of PCs6.4 Public Internet access locations6.4.1 Mobile Internet Units6.5 Internet Exchange Points6.6 Country code top level domain administration6.7 ISP market

7. Broadband Market7.1 Overview7.2 ADSL7.3 Wireless broadband7.4 WiFi7.5 WiMAX7.6 Mobile broadband7.7 Internet via satellite7.8 Broadband over Powerlines

9. Mobile Communications9.1 Overview of Nigeria's mobile market9.2 Regulatory issues9.3 Major mobile operators9.4 Mobile data services9.5 Mobile TV 9.6 3G9.7 Satellite mobile