NCC’s Forum: Operators, Industry Groups Clash on Mobile Termination Pricing Direction

Today, the Nigerian Communications Commission held a Stakeholders’ Consultative Forum in Lagos on the Determination of Mobile Termination Rates (MTR) in Nigeria, opening a formal consultation process aimed at setting a cost-reflective price for voice traffic routed between competing networks.

The forum, convened by the NCC’s Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis Department, brought together mobile network operators, licensed telecoms associations and regulatory officials to examine the methodology and preliminary findings of a commissioned cost-based study, the formal mechanism through which the Commission determines what one operator must pay another to terminate a call on its network.

Why the Rate is Under Review

Mobile Termination Rates sit at the infrastructure-level of Nigeria’s voice market. Every time a subscriber on MTN calls a Glo number, or an Airtel customer dials T2 (formerly 9mobile), the originating network pays the receiving network a termination fee to complete the call. That fee, set by the NCC through periodic cost-based reviews, shapes operator economics, retail call prices and the competitive balance between large and smaller networks.

The current MTR framework has not undergone a comprehensive domestic review in recent years, even as the broader tariff environment has shifted sharply.

In January 2025, the NCC approved a 50 per cent upward adjustment to retail telecoms tariffs, the first significant tariff revision since 2013, following pressure from operators citing energy costs, foreign exchange losses and infrastructure maintenance burdens.

That adjustment did not, however, resolve the question of whether the wholesale interconnection architecture between operators remains cost-aligned with present-day operating realities.

What the Study is Designed to Do

Presenting the purpose of the cost-based study at the forum, Nkechi Araka, assistant director, Policy Competition and Economic Analysis at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), outlined the analytical framework commissioned by the NCC to establish an evidence base for whatever rate the Commission ultimately sets.

The study is designed to model the actual cost incurred by operators in originating, transmitting and terminating mobile voice traffic, a methodology intended to produce a rate neither so high that it distorts competition by protecting inefficient operators, nor so low that it compresses margins below the cost of providing the service.

The MTR determination process follows an established NCC pattern. In 2021, the Commission concluded a similar exercise for Mobile International Termination Rates, the fee applying to calls arriving from foreign networks, engaging a consulting firm, running stakeholder forums and ultimately setting a rate expressed in US dollars to insulate the mechanism from naira volatility.

The domestic MTR study now underway applies comparable methodology to calls terminating on Nigerian networks between Nigerian operators.

Welcoming the Forum

Earlier, in her welcome address, Omotayo Mohammed, head of Competition and Tariff at the NCC, framed the review as a necessary exercise in regulatory maintenance at a moment of significant change across the sector.

Mohammed, who leads the department that drove the January 2026 PwC-led competition study, which found that the Nigerian telecom market now contributes approximately 9.1 per cent of national GDP, has consistently positioned the NCC’s pricing interventions as tools for ensuring “fair, effective and sustainable” competition rather than instruments of operator preference or consumer subsidy.

The MTR forum continues that positioning: a determination grounded in data, presented to industry before a decision is made.

ALTON: Operator Costs Must Be Reflected

Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunication Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), offered the industry perspective with characteristic directness.

Adebayo has been the most prominent operator-side voice in Nigerian telecoms regulation over the past two years, it was ALTON that made the loudest public case for the 50 per cent retail tariff adjustment, arguing that the industry had become “a victim of its own success,” absorbing infrastructure costs that the old tariff structure made unrecoverable.

At Tuesday’s forum, Adebayo argued that any revised MTR must reflect the genuine cost of providing network services in Nigeria’s current operating environment, with energy, foreign exchange and infrastructure maintenance costs all materially higher than when the existing rate was established.

A rate set below cost recovery, in ALTON’s framing, would deepen the financial pressure on operators and undercut the investment rationale for expanding network coverage, particularly at a time when NCC is separately demanding quality-of-service improvements.

ATCON: Smaller Operators Need Protection

On his part, Chidi Ibisi, representing the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), brought a different set of concerns to the table. ATCON’s membership includes the broader telecoms ecosystem, internet service providers, fixed operators, infrastructure companies and smaller licensed players that do not have the balance sheets or subscriber scale of the major MNOs.

Ibisi’s perspective centred on the structural asymmetry that MTR policy can either entrench or correct.

A high termination rate benefits networks with large subscriber bases, because traffic flows more heavily to them, they terminate more calls than they originate off-net, making high rates a revenue advantage for dominant operators.

Smaller networks, by contrast, tend to pay out more in termination fees than they collect, making high rates a competitive disadvantage that can compound over time into market concentration.

ATCON’s position at the forum, consistent with its stance in prior regulatory consultations, pressed for a rate-setting methodology that explicitly accounts for this asymmetry, one that does not simply validate the cost structures of the largest operators but models the sector in a way that preserves space for smaller players.

What Comes Next

Tuesday’s forum is a consultation step, not a decision. The NCC will take the inputs gathered, from ALTON, ATCON, individual MNOs, and other registered stakeholders, alongside the cost-based study findings to determine a draft rate. That draft is typically subject to further stakeholder engagement before the Commission issues a final determination.

The timing of the review matters for the broader regulatory environment. The NCC is simultaneously running a National Telecommunications Policy review to replace the NTP 2000, conducting a full industry competition study through PwC, and managing the aftermath of last year’s retail tariff adjustment.

How the Commission sets the MTR will send a signal about which direction it intends to pull the sector, toward cost recovery for operators, toward lower barriers to competition, or toward some calibrated position between the two.

For subscribers, the MTR does not appear on any bill. But it shapes what operators charge for calls, how aggressively they compete for customers on other networks, and whether the economics of providing service in underserved areas work.

Getting it wrong in either direction, has consequences that travel the full length of the value chain.

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