NCC to raise $987m @ December 10 Spectrum Auction of 5G Licenses

Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is expected to raise at least $987 million from the five slots of spectrum on offer for the deployment of the Fifth Generation (5G) services in the country.

The spectrum auction will hold on Monday, December 13, 2021.

NCC has pegged the reserve price for the 3.5GHz spectrum auction at the sum of $197.4 million per slot.

Oluwatoyin Asaju, director of spectrum administration at Nigerian Communications Commission, announced this on Thursday at a stakeholders’ consultative forum in Lagos.

Asaju stated that a reserve price is a minimum amount that a seller will accept as the winning bid and in the bidding process, it prevents a bidder who offers a price lower than what the owner will accept from winning the auction.

“A reserve price of approximately N75 billion (Seventy-Five Billion) Naira only, equivalent to One Hundred and Ninety-Seven Million and Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only (USS 197,400,000.00) is to be used.

“An Initial Bid Deposit (IBD) equal to 10% of the reserve price is adopted in line with the previous auction, “he said.

Asaju revealed that the ascending clock auction process will be used.

According to him, the auction will be software-based; stressing that provisions have been made for the manual auction should the auction software fail during the auction process.

Speaking on eligibility criteria for network operators, the director of spectrum administration said only licensees with 100 percent regulatory compliance would be allowed to participate in the auction.

“New entrants are allowed to participate in the auction in addition to existing licensees.

“Licensees with outstanding debts that have secured Management’s approval for a payment plan will be allowed to participate,” he emphasized.

The stakeholder engagement forum, according to the Commission, is an important regulatory prerequisite for the planned auction of the 3.5Ghz spectrum, which is necessary for the rollout of the 5G network in Nigeria.

Gentechnews recalled that Prof. Umar Danbatta, executive vice-chairman, NCC, earlier in October told a public hearing and inquiry on the proposed draft regulations on telephone subscriber registration, SIM replacement and spectrum allocation, 2021, that the commission had put everything in place to auction five slots of 5G spectrum.

“When I appeared before the Senate on our readiness for 5G deployment, I said we were 95 per cent but right now we are 97 per cent,” EVC NCC said.