A 2021 study conducted by Cyber security firm Surfshark for Digital Quality of Life indicates that Nigeria’s internet speed, while having considerable improvements, nevertheless lags below its African peers such as Kenya and South Africa.
According to the report, Nigeria mobile broadband ranks 56th in the internet quality index due to low internet speeds.
“The country has one of the slowest broadband connection speeds globally (13.45 Mbps), ranking 105th, and slightly faster mobile internet (17.91 Mbps), ranking 96th,” said the report. “However, the country’s broadband speed growth is one of the fastest on the planet, ranking 16th.”
Interestingly, the telecom industry regulator in Nigeria – the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has set of KPIs to ensure the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) maintain appreciable quality of service (QoS). But how are the MNOs fairing? Can you as a consumer help to improve the quality of mobile broadband in Nigeria? Enext believes you can!
Enext Wireless, through its dynamic National Independent Wireless Broadband Quality Reporting (NIWBQR), provides the public and the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) a level of visibility into the quality of LTE access in the country.
Early last year, Enext Wireless showcased few components of its flagship – Enext Metrics.
Quality of Mobile Broadband in Nigeria
- 1G and 2G were for mobile voice connection services
- 3G was for mobile voice and some data connection services
- 4G is for internet data connection services which allow for multiple forms of communication – voice, video, multimedia, internet of things, etc.
- 5G extends the data communication capabilities of 4G to increase connection speed and density and allow for the creation of unique communication services within the same network (network slicing).
- All of the above depend on effective utilization of the airwave. And the more advanced the standard, the higher the demand on the quality of the utilization of the airwave.
- It is not sufficient to accept what the service providers say about the quality of their networks when users can independently verify that quality
- EMETRICS (available here) provides a means for such independent verification
How you can help
- Use EMETRICS to find the quality of mobile broadband (LTE or 5G) at your location.
- Let your service provider know you would like them to provide measurement data to Enextgen or use Enext Wireless’ measurement tool (Enextlog), if there is no data for your location or area.
- Share with us any observed lack of correlation between its ranking and your experience at your location.
- Spread the news that Enext Wireless provides information on the quality of mobile broadband.
- The more users, the more areas covered
- The more areas covered the higher the incentive for the operators to pay attention to the quality of their mobile broadband networks.
- Realize that this service is offered by a company whose primary interest is in looking out for the Nigerian public
- Understand that quality of service rating should flow from those receiving the service to those offering it, not the other way around.
- Don’t rely on self-serving quality reports from network operators.
Usage Guide
- The key information is conveyed in color codes
- You have LTE coverage if the EMETRICS rank is not RED
- RED means not to expect reliable LTE coverage.
- The other codes – saddle brown, yellow, blue and green are for use in optimizing RF quality.
- Toggle Full Screen to change MNOs.
- Use Report Selection for viewing the other measurements that are primarily for technical use.
- Ping is for packet latency which provides some indication of application layer performance
- Uplink and downlink throughput data will show up under the appropriate selection (we often do not collect these)
The focus of its measurements is to improve RF quality, which is the foundation for reliable mobile internet access.
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