Airtel Pulls Out Of  5G Auction Bid 

The Management of Airtel Africa has said it could not afford to sacrifice more than $270 million for a futuristic 5G services that is still evolving with uncertain availability of affordable devices and business cases.
This is contained in a press statement signed by Airtel’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, recently.
Ogunsanya confirmed that the Nigerian subsidiary of the company pulled out of the auction.
According to Airtel, “The business case for 5G across all sub-Saharan markets is evolving, and we remain committed to driving broadband capacity in our various markets. We will continue to closely track the 5G ecosystem over the next several years, in particular the availability of affordable 5G devices and relevant use cases.
“Airtel Africa retains ample capacity, spread across various spectrum bands, in Nigeria and its other markets, to continue to meet the growing data demands of our customers for many years to come with several potential routes available to the business to deliver even greater capacities, cost effectively, in the long run”.
Ogunsanya, however, commended the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for a transparent 5G auction completed on December 13, 2021.
The Tide reports that after 11 rounds of bidding that lasted eight hours, Mafab Communications Ltd and MTN Nigeria Plc, emerged the two successful winners of the 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum auction for the deployment of Fifth Generation (5G) technology to support the delivery of ubiquitous broadband services in Nigeria.
The two winners emerged in a keenly contested 3.5GHz Spectrum auction conducted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.
The event took place at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja penultimate Monday, December 13, 2021.
The auction prices increased progressively to $224,414,217.43 at the Sixth Round; $231,146,643.96 at the Seventh Round; $240, 392,509.71 at the Eighth Round; $251, 210,172.65 at the Ninth Round; and $263,700,050.00 at the Round 10 of the auction exercise.
The auction process reached its peak at Round 11 when the bid price graduated to $275,904,886.25 with all the three bidders still actively participating.
The main stage of the auction, however, ended at the conclusion of the 11th Round, with Airtel listing an exit bid of $270,000,000, while MTN posted an exit bid of $273,000,000, giving way to the Assignment Stage. At this point, Airtel had dropped off from the race having posted a lower exit bid, thus leaving Mafab and MTN as winners of the two available lots.