While immediate operational hurdles such as energy supply, remain a priority, industry experts at Enextgen Wireless are advocating for a more proactive, data-driven approach to ensure a superior “Quality of Experience (QOE)” for all subscribers.

Navigating the Energy-Connectivity Nexus

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) recently identified disruptions in diesel supply by the National Oil and Gas Suppliers Association (NOGASA) as a primary cause of service outages in Abuja.

These bottlenecks have significantly impacted colocation providers like IHS Nigeria, which powers essential base stations for major Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).

To mitigate such vulnerabilities in the future, Enextgen suggests that the industry should accelerate the transition to sustainable energy solutions, such as solar and hybrid systems, reducing the dependency on volatile fossil fuel supply chains.

In a recent EMETRICS analysis, Enexgten Wireless reported:

“Our understanding is that the NCC’s mandate is to regulate telecommunication services, through spectrum licensing and other means. NCC has the authority to regulate all aspects of telecommunications services, and hold service providers accountable for the quality of their networks/services.

In reality, it often appears that NCC goes out of its way to protect telecom services providers. NCC can be more effective in meeting its mandates for high quality of experience in mobile networks by allowing/encouraging the MNOs to be more accountable for the quality of their networks.

The MNOs are commercial businesses. NCC should let them breathe, not smother them with love. NCC should be less dedicated to making excuses for them. Instead, NCC should facilitate their ability to provide the best quality of experience obtainable with their deployed infrastructure, and penalize them for inattention to quality issues. Our platform/service makes this far easier to accomplish”

Beyond Crisis Management: Moving Toward Proactive Accountability

Current analysis suggests that while the NCC’s efforts to facilitate stakeholder dialogue are valuable, there is a strategic opportunity to evolve the regulatory framework. Rather than managing issues after they occur, an advisory approach emphasizes:

• Empowering Market Discipline: Allowing commercial MNOs to take greater direct accountability for network quality can foster a more competitive and self-correcting market.
• Performance-Based Oversight: Encouraging the best possible experience from existing infrastructure while maintaining clear penalties for avoidable inattention to quality issues.
• Transparency in Reporting: Bridging the gap in shared Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ensure that technical standards keep pace with technology rollouts like 5G.

The Role of Independent Verification

Technical data logged in early December 2025 highlights specific areas where network optimization is needed.

For instance, reports indicate high connection drop rates across both 4G and 5G networks in Abuja , with MTN showing a drop rate nearly double that of Airtel in certain 4G segments.

The table below shows average EMETRICS ranking of coverage signal as the probe transversed local government areas:

Enextgen Wireless also pledged its readiness to work with the NCC as an independent verification and monitoring systems to  offer a complementary infrastructure that can:

1. Identify Avoidable Drops: Pinpoint RF optimization issues before they lead to customer complaints.
2. Enhance Spectrum Efficiency: Unobtrusively improve signal quality, which unwittingly leads to better revenue generation for operators through more efficient spectrum use.
3. Optimize 5G Transitions: Manage the “Quality of Experience” as users move between 5G, 4G, and 3G to prevent substantial increases in packet loss and latency.

“The goal for 2026 is a telecom ecosystem where the regulator and operators work in a complementary fashion.

“By integrating independent technical analysis into the national monitoring strategy, the NCC can shift from a reactive “defense” of the industry to a proactive ‘facilitation’ of excellence”, Engr. Aderemi Adeyeye, the president/CEO of Enext Inc., affirmed.

For the Abuja subscriber, the path to reliable connectivity lies in this balance of robust infrastructure, independent data verification, and a regulatory environment that prioritizes the end-user’s daily experience.

The post Enextgen Wireless Tasks NCC on Strengthening Telecom Oversight, QoE appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

Instead, the company argues, the arrangement risks benefiting mobile network operators (MNOs) far more than the public, contrary to NCC’s mandate of ensuring high quality of service nationwide.

In a technical assessment (report) sighted by Techeconomy, Enextgen Wireless said the NCC–Ookla collaboration relies heavily on crowd-sourced data, which, while useful, does not provide the level of diagnostic insight required to uncover persistent coverage gaps, high connection-drop rates, and severe latency issues plaguing users across the country.

Crowd-Sourced Data Helps MNOs, Not Consumers

Enextgen notes that Ookla’s reporting “serves a purpose, mostly for helping MNOs,” but does not expose the root causes of poor quality of experience for everyday users.

Their argument is based on years of independent measurements from their EMETRICS platform, which uses controlled testing to evaluate real-world network performance across Nigeria.

According to the company, crowd-sourced data often masks serious quality-of-service failures.

For instance, Enextgen’s measurements at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport show connection drop rates of 33–63% on MTN’s 4G network, figures that do not appear in coverage maps derived from crowd-sourced samples.

Similarly, MTN’s 3G network showed drop-call rates as high as 46%, with round-trip latency exceeding 900ms, making basic connectivity unreliable even where signal bars appear strong.

“These realities do not surface in NCC’s new system,” Engineer Aderemi Adeyeye, CEO of Enextgen argued, noting that the NCC’s published coverage map “does not show the high rate of connection drops” or the recurring handovers to lower-quality 3G networks, which substantially degrade user experience.

“Nigerian MNOs Do Not Prioritise Basic Coverage Quality”

Enextgen Wireless expressed concern that the NCC’s current approach could allow mobile operators to maintain broad coverage claims while ignoring fundamental radio-network optimisation, such as proper signal quality, interference management, or improved success rates for internet access.

“Our experience is that Nigerian MNOs do not care that much about the basic quality of their coverage signal,” he stated. “Connection drop rates and low internet access success rates are prevalent and avoidable, yet the necessary actions for maintaining high-quality radio networks are not receiving adequate attention.”

A Better Approach to Protect Consumers

Enextgen maintains that if the NCC truly intends to uphold its mandate of ensuring high-quality mobile networks, the Commission must adopt more rigorous, controlled-measurement tools capable of identifying, and forcing operators to fix, coverage and quality gaps.

“For NCC to meet its self-proclaimed mandate of maintaining high mobile network quality, it needs our platform/service or an equivalent,” he said, pointing to its EMETRICS system, which has been in operation since 2019.

The company warns that without such actionable, engineering-grade analytics, the NCC–Ookla partnership may generate attractive dashboards and broad coverage statistics, but fail to address the real-world pain points, call drops, slow browsing, poor video streaming, and unreliable 4G/5G transitions, experienced daily by millions of Nigerians.

Bottom Line

Enextgen Wireless insists that only diagnostic, engineering-level assessments, not broad crowd-sourced averages, can help Nigeria close its chronic quality-of-service gaps.

Until then, the company argues, NCC’s new reporting system may provide more value to operators, who can point to improved superficial metrics, than to the consumers whose connectivity frustrations remain unresolved.

The post Enextgen Wireless Questions NCC–Ookla Partnership, Says it Prioritises MNOs over Consumers appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The report acknowledges that vandalism of network equipment remains a serious challenge for operators and the industry at large, describing it as a criminal act that should be swiftly prosecuted.

However, it warns against using vandalism as a blanket explanation for poor network performance.

“A standing tower with a faulty mains rectifier left unfixed provides no better coverage than one destroyed by vandalism,” the report released Enextgen Wireless led by Engineer Aderemi Adeyeye notes, stressing that ongoing measurement of user experience is essential to truly assess the impact of vandalism on network quality.

Key Findings (August 2025):

Coverage and Signal Strength: It could be deduced from the report that MTN’s 5G network posted the strongest RSRP (−89 dBm), indicating better signal quality than Airtel (−96 dBm on 5G) and Globacom (−97 dBm on LTE).

RSRP refers to Reference Signal Received Power; a key metric in cellular networks (like 4G and 5G) that measures the power of the specific reference signals broadcast by a cell tower and received by your device.

Network Quality (SINR & RSRQ): MTN 5G also led with a 17 dB SINR, a key metric for data throughput and user experience, followed by Airtel 5G at 15 dB.

SINR or Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise Ratio is a key metric in wireless communications that measures the strength of a desired signal relative to the combined power of all interfering signals and background noise.

A higher SINR value indicates a better quality wireless connection, leading to more stable and faster data transfer speeds, fewer dropped calls, and improved customer satisfaction

Latency: Airtel LTE delivered the lowest average latency at 73 ms, ahead of MTN 5G (78 ms). By comparison, MTN LTE posted 165 ms, which could translate to slower response times in real-world applications.

Connection Reliability: Globacom LTE achieved the lowest call drop rate (1.39%), while MTN LTE had the highest (4.21%), exceeding the target of <1%.

Internet Access Success Rate: Interestingly, the report indicates none of the operators reached the benchmark target of 99.90% access success rate, underscoring room for improvement in network availability and consistency.

Industry Context & Recommendations

Enextgen argues that independent, regular measurement is critical to holding operators accountable for service quality. It calls for a framework where both operators’ profit motives and subscribers’ right to reliable service are protected.

“As MNOs’ right to focus on their bottom line is protected, so too should the right of ordinary subscribers to value for fees paid,” the report sighted byTecheconomy states.

The findings come amid increased regulatory and public pressure on Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to improve user experience, as well as concerns over the economic cost of poor connectivity on businesses and individuals.

The Bottom Line

While infrastructure vandalism remains a threat to Nigeria’s telecoms sector, quality of experience issues cannot be fully attributed to vandalism.

Instead, Enextgen calls for data-driven transparency to pinpoint gaps in service delivery, benchmark performance, and guide both industry and policy interventions for better broadband outcomes.

The post BROADBAND: Enextgen Wireless Calls for Better Quality of Experience Monitoring appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The four largest MNOs in Nigeria are MTN Nigeria, Globacom, Airtel Nigeria, and 9mobile. And the report about the quality of LTE networks in Nigeria is coming on the heels of a report by TechEconomy.ng on top 20 ISPs in Nigeria. Incidentally, some of the ISPs functions are internet service resellers for the large MNOs.

The importance of independent monitoring

“We cannot continue to depend on government for things we can do for ourselves, when it is obvious that the government is very busy.

Unbelievable as it may seem, our ancestors existed within the borders of Nigeria before the first British person stepped foot on this land. In other words, we owned the land.

Now, we have our interaction with the British and 20/20 hindsight to thank for reminding us that we were one people for whom it is never too late.

We have given up a lot. In return, we have received only the type of comfort that numbs the pain of giving up self-worth.

We are now left with no choice but to rely on a system created to denigrate our value and deny us reverence for our ancestry. This affects us all.

The only solution is to learn to look after one another. We cannot blame the government for making us sick when we wait for its permission to breathe despite having access to free air.

These words summed up the feelings of experts at Enextgen Wireless following their discoveries overtime on the quality of 4G LTE deployed by the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in Nigeria.

The experts’ verdict is that the quality of LTE networks in Nigeria is not good. They will tell you why:

According to latest report by Enextgen Wireless, the situation gets worse in areas where it is needed the most.

“We have monitored it since 2016, two years after the first LTE network was deployed (by Smile) in Ibadan. We have been sharing our reports on the quality of the networks with the operators ever since.

“We have shared information about our efforts with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). We have incorporated their recommendations into our platform meant to address the very unique nature of the need of a country the size of Nigeria with a growing population of people seemingly programmed to believe that it is normal to celebrate independence without learning how they came to be dependent”.

“NCC collects quality metrics for 2G and 3G networks from network operators and publish them on its website. While the majority of Nigerians are not likely to visit the NCC website for the purpose of reviewing these metrics, at least the metrics are there.

“The NCC doesn’t even seem to acknowledge the existence of LTE as a unique 3GPP mobile communication standard, let alone publish performance metrics for the networks that are based on the standard”, says the company led by Engineer Aderemi Adeyeye.

“We have gone steps further. We have created a platform for collecting quality data from the mobile networks as seen by our devices and making them available to the general public. We have professional logging tools that cost tens of thousands of dollars each for our test configuration.

“However, our mobile application data collection tool makes it possible to simultaneously collect meaningful logs everywhere there is LTE coverage.

“As the data collected using this tool is detailed enough for salient performance optimization activities, in addition to being used to create the reports, our data can be used by the network operators to improve the quality of their networks even though they are not required to do so. It can also be used for benchmarking (even by the NCC) and many other purposes.

The revealed that its purpose and data are different than those of global performance monitoring and benchmarking services such as provided by Ookla, Open Signal, Rootmetrics, Teleworld Services, Nperf, GSMA, etc.

“We focus on the unique Nigerian, not global, problem. We rely on the mobile LTE networks for our own daily business operation, as such have similar interest to ordinary human beings and small businesses in Nigeria in seeing the quality improved”.

In the following slides, they showed areas that they currently have data for.

“Cooperation of the MNOs would facilitate access to data for the rest of the country. We will make our data collection tool available at nominal fee. In return, the public will have visibility into the quality of LTE networks and the MNOs will have access to data for quality monitoring and improvement. While Core Network monitoring and observation tools are essential, they are no substitute for end-user experience that our logs provide visibility into”.

Public access to the network quality data is available via its website while special access to the network quality for MNOs is available, by request via this platform.

MTN should improve 4G LTE quality in Yaba where high quantities of packet loss create unreliable internet connectivity.

Snapshots from Christmas Day:

Captured data from various parts of the country on Christmas day

• Quality issues include
  • RRC Connection Failures
  • Radio Link Failures
  • Packet loss
  • Large packet delays
• Our UE logs provide additional insight into these issues.

• UE traveled north to south. PCI 485 served while PCI 483 was stronger. Issue could be due to missing neighbor relationship definition or failed or missing handoff attempt.
• More detailed analysis is possible with sector information overlaid.

Improving the packet latency in this major business district will result in improved productivity for businesses that rely on reliable, affordable internet connectivity. Though RF quality can be improved, it is good enough. Uplink and downlink throughputs are adequate.

(NB: MTN LTE offers us the best service in this area. Packet latencies in the other networks are higher. Furthermore, MTN RF quality (Emetrics) is higher than that of Airtel or Glo).

Improving the packet latency in this major business district will result in improved productivity for businesses that rely on reliable, affordable internet connectivity. RF quality also needs improvement.

Improving the packet latency in this major business district will result in improved productivity for businesses that rely on reliable, affordable internet connectivity. RF quality also needs improvement.

This is an example where there were no echo returns to ping packets sent to IP address 8.8.8.8.

No echo returns from the identified hex bins from Google DNS Server (8.8.8.8). We experienced packet loss in each of the bins while none of them had poor RF quality.

RF quality is good. However, UE was not able to reach the internet due to packet loss.

Concluding remarks:

LTE networks (operators) in Nigeria have access to a unique asset

• Cost-free access to real user-experience information.
• Experience-based classification of network quality supplemented with real measured values to facilitate quality improvement.
• Opportunity to improve customer experience without additional investment.

Some key benefits of this asset.

• It helps offer value for the money paid by customers without reducing the allure of doing business in an environment with scant expectation of value.
• It supports government’s professed effort to encourage participation of small indigenous enterprises in meaningful telecom engineering activities.
• The resulting opportunity for interested MNOs to claim support for government initiative should make up for anticipated dent in reputation when value is offered to perceived undeserving customers.

The post LTE Networks in Nigeria as metaphors of country’s value system appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

This is as the independent broadband quality monitoring company has called on MTN, the largest telecommunications, in terms of subscriber base, to improve on critical areas of its network services across the country.

Enextgen Wireless has been providing consumer experience on mobile networks through its flagship National Independent Wireless Broadband Quality Reporting (NIWBQR) which measures the quality of effort in Radio Frequency engineering invested in commercial LTE network.

In the latest report which focuses on MTN Nigeria LTE network, Enextgen Wireless reported that all of the areas covered are major population centers, not some uninhabited areas where poor coverage quality might be expected.

Report Details:

Poor service quality in many areas on a typical day

On January 31, 2022, poor service quality is shown by many of our probes.

Locations of poor service quality:

Port Harcourt (River State); Egbeda in Lagos; Yaba in Lagos and Kaduna

Quality issues at No. 1 Harvey Road, Yaba – Average latency plot

Garbled voice and many reconnections during  Microsoft Teams voice call sessions. Delayed delivery of IM messages. Unbearable video conference quality.

“This is typical of the quality of the service that MTN provides in Yaba. It is nearly unimaginable to go for 30 minutes on MTN LTE network without noticeable disruption to the quality of the network.

“We have traced these disruptions to increased packet latencies and loss due, occasionally, to poor RF quality but mainly core network issues. These are all problems that MTN could resolve or, at least, mitigate, if it felt it necessary to.

Adelphi, Maryland in poorer RF condition than the one in the last slide for MTN in Yaba, Lagos – Average latency plot in Verizon Wireless

We used similar probe and the same platform as used for MTN in Yaba to generate this plot.

Verizon Wireless has only 4G LTE coverage (no 5G) at this location.

Average RSRP in Verizon Wireless at this location was about -110 dBm while average RSRP at the Yaba location in MTN was about -105 dBm and this was the worst performance period of the day at this location in Verizon Wireless that is not relied upon for internet access.

Typical average latency plot in Verizon Wireless 4G LTE at the same location as previous slide

We used similar probe and the same platform as used for MTN in Yaba to generate this plot.

RF quality in bins where packet latency was higher than 250 ms on January 31, 2022

In this example poor user experience was not due to the quality of the Radio Frequency signal, as each of the bins had high-enough RF quality for good user experience.

In other words, core network issues such as congestion, or insufficient transport layer provisioning are more likely to have been the causes of the poor quality of service.

Huge quantities of packet loss made for extremely poor quality of service at this location.

RF was of high-enough quality to keep UE in LTE. In the alternative, the UE could simply be kept in 3G. Instead, the UE switched frequently between LTE and 3G making the connection completely worthless.

With any amount of care, MTN could avoid this situation by keeping the UE on one of the two networks. This is typically called RF Optimization. For Ilorin basic pre-deployment RF optimization appears lacking.

The MTN 4G LTE network in Ilorin appears to be a case of even perfunctory pre-deployment optimization not being done.

How could this have happened? Could MTN be getting its clue from our government? We understand that the regulatory agency is very busy. We are doing our very best to encourage network operators not to take all the advantages our system afford them at the expense of the ordinary human Nigerians and small enterprises at once.

Good RF quality in LTE. Unnecessary IRATs to 3G contribute to poor quality of service

Commenting on the report, Engineer Aderemi Adeyeye, President of Enext Inc., said:

“When we lodged complaint with MTN, the speed of response was impressive. However as far as we could tell MTN did not take any action beyond letting us know, the next day, they fixed the problem. We have not received any answer to the question of what problem they fixed and/or what they did to fix that problem. All we know is that the issues we reported on persist.

“Honestly, MTN’s paternalistic attitude in response to our complaint boggled our minds.

“MTN appears to be answerable only to MTN. The public being served (at least ordinary Nigerians and small enterprises) has no voice. The regulatory agency seems to have little time to spare for quality monitoring given the enormous amount of time needed for self-adulation. It doesn’t even acknowledge (on its website) the existence of LTE as a 3GPP standard for 4G.

“The reality of the Nigerian context is that broadband internet access is synonymous with LTE internet access.

“The bulk of Nigerians do not have any other access to real internet (we are discounting 2G/3G as means of broadband internet access).

“We welcome specific request for our raw data from MTN if for the purpose of improving the quality issues identified in this report.

“The objective is to entice MTN to improve the quality of its network. We just like millions of other Nigerian individuals and small enterprises rely on the network for broadband internet connection”.

To visualize the quality of 4G LTE coverage in Nigeria, visit the website HERE. Enextgen Wireless is constantly adding probes to cover more areas.

The post Enextgen Wireless Urges NCC to Hold MNOs Responsible for Poor Quality LTE Services appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

In Nigeria’s evolving telecom sector, Enextgen Wireless is fast becoming a critical player in ensuring transparency, accountability, and measurable service delivery.

The Blind Spot in Nigeria’s Telecom Oversight

While mobile penetration continues to grow, the true quality of service (QoS) experienced by Nigerians often goes unmeasured, or worse, underreported.

Reports from operators can be partial which could also limit the regulator’s audits in scope. This creates a data vacuum, where neither subscribers nor policymakers have a full picture of how networks are truly performing.

Enextgen Wireless fills that gap

Through advanced tools, drive tests, and independent evaluations, the company provides objective, granular, and location-based performance data that reflects the real experience of users, not just promises on a coverage map.

What Sets Enextgen Apart?

• Unbiased Network Testing: Enextgen’s drive tests and reports evaluate all major MNOs equally, MTN, Airtel, Glo, and 9mobile, using the same methodology.
• Transparent Benchmarks: From download speeds and latency to call drop rates and LTE availability, its reports shine a light on network realities.
• City-by-City Analysis: No more vague national averages. Enextgen delivers hyperlocal insights, from Lagos to Abuja, Enugu to Port Harcourt.
• Real-Time Impact: Its findings can immediately inform regulatory action, network investments, and public advocacy.

Why Regulators, MNOs and Consumers Should Pay Attention:

For NCC and Policymakers

Enextgen offers a third-party lens to validate MNO claims, spotlight underserved regions, and design policy interventions backed by real-world data. Ignoring such insights risks prolonging digital exclusion and eroding public trust.

For MNOs

Far from being a threat, Enextgen’s data can serve as a strategic advantage, helping operators identify problem areas, benchmark against competitors, and direct resources where they matter most.

For the Public and Civil Society

Consumers can use these reports to demand better service and transparency. Journalists, digital rights groups, and local governments now have a powerful evidence base to push for inclusive connectivity.

A Call to Embrace Accountability in a Digital Age

As Nigeria deepens its digital economy, rolls out 5G, and seeks to close its broadband gaps, independent performance intelligence must sit at the heart of telecom reform.

Enextgen Wireless isn’t just publishing reports, it’s building a culture of accountability in one of the country’s most vital sectors.

To ignore it is to ignore the lived reality of millions of Nigerian users.
To embrace it is to chart a path toward a more connected, competitive, and consumer-focused telecom industry.

Explore the reports and methodology here.

The post BROADBAND: Why NCC, MNOs Can No Longer Ignore Enextgen Wireless’ Independent Reports appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The power of 5G lies in its ability to transform industries and user experiences through its core features such as ultra-fast speeds, low latency, massive Device connectivity, improved network capacity, network slicing, enhanced mobile broadband, energy efficiency, amongst others.

Ultimately, the combination of speed, low latency, and high reliability empowers the automation of factories, remote management of critical infrastructure, and smart logistics.

This transformation, often called Industry 4.0, will revolutionize manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, and other industries by enabling real-time data exchange and automation on a large scale.

Thus, 5G is much more than just faster internet—it is the foundation for a smarter, more connected world with wide-ranging applications across various sectors, from healthcare and transportation to entertainment and smart cities.

These are the features that make 5G outstanding when compared to 4G/LTE.

Thus, Enextgen Wireless conducted its National Independent Wireless Broadband Quality Reporting (NIWBQR) data collection in Victoria Island that covers MTN and Airtel 5G coverage, while dismissing Mafab’s as ‘too restrictive to be relevant…”

More so, the survey covered 4G LTE footprints for the mobile network operators including Globacom while 9mobile was missing [Visit the website here for details].

Details of the survey findings are shown below:

4G LTE Throughput following data collected on Victoria Island on August 30, 2024:

4G LTE Downlink Throughput August 30, 2024 (by subscription)

See details here.

4G LTE Packet Latency based on Dbata collected on Victoria Island on August 30, 2024

4G LTE Ping Results, August 30, 2024

5G NR Throughput

Data collected on Victoria Island on August 30, 2024. Only MTN and Airtel offer mobile 5G service to the public. In this survey, MTN provides larger 5G footprint than Airtel. Mafab’s offer of 5G is too restrictive to be relevant to our purpose of evaluating public mobile internet access.

5G NR Downlink Throughput August 30, 2024

NIWBQR Ranking

NIWBQR is Enextgen Wireless’ flagship National Independent Wireless Broadband Quality Reporting.

It ranks 4G LTE and 5G NR networks based on the quality of RF coverage and other selected KPIs.

Historical comparison

Commenting on the report, Engineer Remi Adeyeye, President/CEO Enextgen Inc., said:

“We have a platform for evaluating basic functionality of mobile broadband networks in Nigeria

“MNOs can use it to audit the quality of the networks deployed for them by their vendors.

“NCC can use it to set target KPIs for mobile broadband.

“Academic institutions can use it to provide training in some practical aspects of the deployment of mobile networks.

“For public visualization, visit here. All logged data are available for use in improving network quality. Contact us at marketing@enextwireless.com for further discussion”.

The post Enextgen Unearths MTN, Airtel 5G Footprints…Mafab? appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

According to the ITU in its ‘Mobile Network Coverage Facts and Figures 2023’ report, this is in part due to the continued importance of older mobile technologies in Africa, such as 2G and 3G networks, the international agency on telecom and internet said in its latest report.

The report indicated that while 2G and 3G networks are being phased out in developed countries, they remain a key part of the telecommunications landscape in many African countries, especially those with lower-income economies like Nigeria.

According to the ITU, 2G and 3G networks are still the predominant technologies in use in many African countries including Nigeria.

This is because these networks offer a lower-cost option for providing basic mobile services, such as voice calls and text messages, in areas where 4G and 5G networks are not available.

There are still hundreds of towns and villages in all the country’s six geopolitical zones workout 4G and 5G networks.

As a result, ITU said, older technologies (2G and 3G) are likely to continue to play an important role in the African telecom industry. (ITU).

It noted that 3G coverage was at 19 per cent and 2G coverage at 10 per cent, adding that Africa continued to lag the world in network adoption with 5G already at 38 per cent and 4G at 52 per cent.

The union stated that in many countries older-generation mobile networks were being switched off in favour of new-generation networks.

It said, “5G enables the development of a digital ecosystem by connecting machines, objects, and devices with ultra-low latency and the potential to improve energy efficiency. This is the case for most European operators that plan to switch off 3G networks by December 2025 and for operators in the Asia-Pacific region.

“However, in some countries, the path is less clear, mainly because 2G and 3G networks retain a significant presence. This is the case notably in lower-income countries, where both technologies remain an important means of communication. In these countries, the main obstacles to 5G deployment and adoption include the high infrastructure costs, device affordability, and regulatory barriers.”

The United Nations body on telecommunications declared that since commercial deployment began in 2019, 5G coverage had increased to reach 40 per cent of the world population in 2023 with distribution very uneven.

It stated that while 89 per cent of the population in high-income countries was covered by a 5G network, coverage remained limited in low-income countries.

It expanded, “Europe boasts the most extensive 5G coverage, with 68 per cent of the population covered, followed by the Americas region (59 per cent) and the Asia-Pacific region (42 per cent). Coverage reaches 12 per cent of the population in the Arab States region and less than 10 per cent in the CIS region (eight per cent) and Africa region (six per cent).”

Speaking on broadband coverage, ITU noted that while the mobile-broadband network is already available to 95 per cent of the world population, bridging the coverage gap (i.e., the remaining five per cent) is proving difficult).

It added, “In the Africa region, the gap is shrinking but remains relatively high at 16 per cent, predominantly affecting the population of central and western Africa.”

They indicated that only about a dozen countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, have launched commercial 5G services.

The ITU’s report is a vindication of Enextgen Wireless, an engineering company that focuses on improving user experience in Mobile Broadband Wireless Communications.

The company had in December 2023 hinted that tampering with a cell site in Maiduguri should not cause a call to drop in Yaba, Lagos or vice-versa.

In fact, they communicated this to the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Enextgen Wireless is of the view that some MNOs are deploying propaganda machine to confuse the subscribers who, in many occasions, do not receive value for money paid.

“Use our platform or come up with similar platform to monitor mobile networks instead of making assumptions or repeating the propaganda of the MNOs”, the company wrote in a report obtained by Techeconomy.

In the report, the engineers showed examples of call drops from Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja.

“Those from Lagos and Port Harcourt were due to missing handoffs. Sure, these could be due to cable cuts. However, they appear often enough in MTN’s network that they should reflect on the KPIs published for MTN by NCC. They don’t. Those from MTN’s 5G in Abuja occurred at a stationary location”.

“The government should stop blaming the public for vandalism being the primary cause of poor network quality, in lieu of holding MNOs accountable.

“If vandalism is truly the cause of all mobile network quality issues, let the reports published by the NCC reflect the resulting network degradation”, the report reads in part.

The post ITU says Nigeria, Others Still Largely 2G, 3G Dominant, Report Vindicates Enextgen appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The impact of the quality of the networks on individuals, small and enterprises and the government activities is beyond measure.

The mobile network operators (MNOs) are deploying services hence the need to ensure that service rendered is in commensurate with money spent by the customers.

This is chief among reasons Enextgen Wireless’ team of engineers wake up every morning to monitor the networks, analyze and offer independent and professional advice on how to get the best quality of service for the citizens and businesses.

“We make salient portions of our reports available as public service. The MNOs and their vendors as well as any interested party have access to the reports. A more detailed version is also available for first-ass signal quality analysis by subscription”, said Engineer Remi Adeyeye, the President and Chairman of Enext Inc.

Continuing, he wrote in the latest report on KPIs published by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the infrastructure deployment by the MNOs:

“We were curious as to how the KPIs published by the NCC could diverge from our own record and experience as much as they do. We also found it particularly interesting that the vandalism of and tampering with their infrastructure that the MNOs often complain about appear to have no impact on providing such excellent KPIs as published on NCC website. Although this could have been made possible by herculean efforts to maintain excellent KPIs by the MNOS, we don’t enjoy such excellent quality in our daily use of the networks”, Adeyeye said.

“Our primary focus since 2016 has been mobile broadband networks (4G LTE and (now) 5G NR). However, since most of the KPIs that are related to Radio Access Networks published by NCC address mostly their impact on voice connections which primarily use 2G and 3G networks in Nigeria, we decided to run verification tests for two of the key KPIs – Drop Call Rate and Call Setup Success Rate.

“We had one Call Origination phone for each of the four major national MNOs in our test vehicle making periodic calls to another phone on the same network but stationed at our Ibadan office, for the first test.
For the second test, we had all 8 phones (UE) placed in the test vehicle with the same calling pattern.

Report from the Enextgen Wireless tests:

In-vehicle placement of UEs

Mobile UEs to stationary UEs KPIs compared with published KPIs

KPIs for all UEs in the same vehicle compared with published KPIs

Needed changes

Four Key Findings in the Report

Enextgen bluntly stated that the formulas for Drop Call Rate and Connection Failure Rate used for the reports from the MNOs to NCC are suspect.

“The fact that they are could not possibly have been lost on the MNOs, given their expertise in this matter.

“A logical explanation then seems to be that the MNOs find the omissions in the formulas advantageous in that the inaccurate results they yield make their KPIs look better.

Secondly, “the KPIs that are published on NCC’s website do not support the repeated warnings about the negative impact of vandalism and willful destruction of telecom facilities on the networks. The KPIs portray networks that are almost perfect.

Thirdly, the independent report by Enextgen indicates that both MTN and Airtel claims that are very difficult to verify.

“Both claim they have deployed VoLTE nationwide. Yet most, if not all, of the calls we make on our Volte-capable phones are processed in Circuit Switched Fall Back, not VoLTE.  In promoting their VoLTE deployments, the MNOs touch on the benefits of VoLTE. We find that peculiar since they do not use VoLTE to handle most of our calls.

Fourtly, “Airtel has claimed that it has equipped all of its cell sites for LTE. Yet, it is very easy to find along any stretch of many routes, cell sites where 4G UEs are served in 3G or even 2G only”.

In conclusion, the first case with mobile to stationary calls depicts a more challenging condition since the mobile phones were all inside the office where signal quality for all the MNOs need improvement. The results reflect this.

The second case with all mobile devices in the same moving vehicle depicts a very favorable condition for the MNOs. Many of the measured KPIs are not too far off from the values published.

They might have been even closer if the more appropriate formulas had been used for the published KPIs since the reported KPIs would have been worse.

“There are substantial outliers. Our hope is that the concerned MNOs will make necessary improvement”, the report contains.

Recommendations

Enegten Wireless has made available its platform – EMETRICS – to the MNOs, their MSPs and the NCC.

It is a national platform for evaluation and enhancement of the quality of mobile networks in Nigeria.  The platform which costs about N11 million (eleven million nairas) per year to subscribe will allow NCC, for instance, to verify the claims made by MNOs.

It will further allow MNOs to verify the claims made by their vendors such as Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE and others.

The emetrics allows the vendors to provide much higher network quality to the public from RF signal perspective. The very nature of our beloved country makes this necessary.

“”In other word, this is a platform that allows indigenous peoples and enterprises of Nigeria to enjoy the benefits of having the best networks possible when MNOs and their MSPs voluntarily provide visibility into the quality of their networks instead of having us take at face value their words or even those of our government”, the company said.

The post Ubiquitous Network Access: Reasons NCC, MNOs and Vendors Should Embrace Emetrics appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

The first deployment of LTE in Nigeria was in 2014 by Smile Telecom in Ibadan.

By 2016, Ntel, Bitflux and Smile had initiated efforts to deploy LTE in Lagos. Shortly after, the major national MNOs joined the effort.

By 2018, all of the four major network operators had LTE footprint in substantial parts of the country. This year has only seen increased 4G LTE coverage in Nigeria.

During the fourth quarter of this year, MTN began offering commercial 5G service using, primarily, its own routers.

“Unfortunately, unlike 2G and 3G networks, the regulatory body, NCC, has not established KPIs for monitoring the quality of the 4G networks or documented significant efforts made to encourage ongoing maintenance of high quality for these networks”, Enextgen Wireless Limited lamented in this report.

“The impact of efforts being made to minimize vandalism and improve the quality of public infrastructure can only be appreciated through ongoing monitoring. This is important because mobile broadband is indispensable to a vast majority of small enterprises and ordinary residents of the country.

“We have been carrying on the responsibility of monitoring these networks since 2016. We have evolved our process to where we now have a unique platform for not only monitoring the networks but also facilitating the efforts of interested network operators to maintain the best networks possible, a unique asset not available to other network operators in other countries”.

The 2022 4G LTE Spectrum Utilization Efficiency by MTN, Glo, Airtel and 9Mobile report focuses on benchmarking the quality of 4G LTE networks in Lagos and Ibadan – cities where Enextgen Wireless engineers have most consistently collected data in all four major networks.

“However, we have data in substantial parts of the country on MTN and one or two other networks, including data from some of the remote areas”.

The report available to TechEconomy uses data from the company’s Enterprise EMETRICS, which is available, by subscription, to interested MNOs, to rank the four network operators according to the quality of 4G LTE signal and packet delays:

Overview:

In the following pages, Enextgen Wireless ranked the quality of mobile RF signal used to provide 4G LTE services by the four major network operators in Lagos and Ibadan

“We base the rankings for EMETRICS according to the ratio of (green + blue + yellow) METRICS bins to (green + blue + yellow) RSRP bins.

“We base the ranking for Latency on the ratio of (green + blue + yellow) Latency bins to the overall latency bins (green, blue, yellow, brown, red)”, the report reads.

In each case, the one with the highest quotient ranks the highest:

The post BROADBAND: 2022 4G LTE Spectrum Utilization Efficiency by MTN, Glo, Airtel and 9Mobile appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.