Why Nigeria's abundant internet capacity fails to reach homes

Nigeria has eight submarine cables including WACS, MainOne, Glo-1, Equiano and 2Africa delivering over 360 terabits per second of international capacity at relatively low cost—some as cheap as ₦29 million per kilometre. Yet distributing this capacity inland remains far more expensive and complex.

The bottleneck lies in terrestrial fibre deployment, which faces right-of-way fees above recommended levels, multiple taxation, security risks, and power challenges. While submarine cables benefit from standardised, large-scale projects with open-access consortium models, domestic fibre suffers from fragmentation. Multiple operators duplicate infrastructure along the same routes rather than sharing networks, inflating costs that get passed to consumers.

State-level inconsistencies plague the sector. Bayo Juba of IHS Nigeria notes that right-of-way approvals take too long, adding financing costs and delays. The Nigerian Communications Commission acknowledges this and is implementing cost-based wholesale pricing to prevent anti-competitive pricing and encourage infrastructure sharing, according to commissioner Sunday Oshadami.

Industry leaders argue for meaningful collaboration. Samson Adewunmi Anjorin of LinkOrg Networks says operators should buy and sell capacity along route segments instead of each building end-to-end. Meta's Sade Dada points to Peru's "network as a service" framework where operators, DFIs and tech companies shared infrastructure, lowering wholesale prices.

George Onafowokan of Coleman Wires & Cables argues Nigeria must build local manufacturing capacity rather than depend on imports, which exposes operators to foreign exchange volatility. Without sector-specific financing mechanisms and patient capital, indigenous operators struggle to invest in long-term infrastructure.

The solution requires enforcing consistent right-of-way policies, moving open-access models from theory to practice, and treating inland connectivity as national infrastructure. Until then, Nigeria faces the irony of abundant bandwidth at its shores but expensive connectivity just kilometres inland.

Will your business benefit from cheaper bandwidth if open-access fibre sharing becomes reality, or should you explore satellite alternatives like Starlink while terrestrial costs remain high?

SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/01/06/why-nigeria-fibre-is-expensive-inland/