The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that about 50 percent of Nigerians who own 5G-enabled devices are unable to access 5G services, largely due to persistent coverage gaps across the country.
The revelation was made on Wednesday by Edoyemi Ogoh, Director of Technical Standards and Network Integrity at the NCC, during the presentation of the Fourth Quarter (Q4) 2025 telecommunications industry performance report.
“About 50 percent of Nigerians with 5G devices don’t have access to 5G service,” Ogoh said.
“This simply means there is no 5G service in the areas where they want to utilise it. So, there is still a significant gap in 5G coverage.”
Ogoh highlighted a continuing latency and performance gap between urban and rural areas, noting that users in major cities enjoy better network quality compared to those in rural communities.
According to him, major operators — MTN, Airtel and Glo — are performing relatively well in terms of latency in urban centres, with MTN leading. However, performance in rural areas remains uneven.
“In rural areas, MTN and Airtel are doing fairly okay, but Glo and T2 still need to improve,” Ogoh said.
He explained that high latency particularly affects activities such as video streaming, video calls and content uploads, with rural subscribers bearing the brunt of these challenges.
NCC data also shows that the digital divide between urban and rural areas is widening, with faster improvements recorded in cities.
Ogoh disclosed that the median download speed in urban areas rose from 19 Mbps in Q3 2025 to 20.5 Mbps in Q4, while rural download speeds declined during the same period.
Similarly, the upload speed gap widened, increasing from 3.5 Mbps in Q3 to 4.4 Mbps in Q4.
“We are seeing more improvements, or faster improvements, in urban centres compared to rural areas,” he said.
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“This can be linked to the fact that operators added over 2,800 new sites in the last year, most of which were deployed in urban locations.”
Despite improvements in some cities, Ogoh said 5G performance remains below expectations nationwide due to limited coverage.
While 5G delivers significantly better speeds and performance where available, he noted that many subscribers can only access it in select locations such as offices, with weaker or nonexistent coverage at home.
However, some progress was recorded in key cities. According to NCC data, 5G coverage gaps in Lagos fell from 70.9 percent in Q3 to 55.4 percent in Q4, while Abuja’s gap declined from 65.6 percent to 47.4 percent.
“Obviously, there is still some gap to cover, but we are moving in the right direction,” Ogoh said.
Ogoh also raised concerns about road network connectivity, revealing that about 326 kilometres of roads nationwide currently have no network coverage.
He stressed that 4G remains the backbone of Nigeria’s data ecosystem, accounting for around 97 percent of quality service experiences on roads, and continues to play a critical role in overall network performance.
To significantly improve service delivery, Ogoh said telecom operators must accelerate 5G rollout nationwide, expand infrastructure in rural areas, upgrade rural sites from 2G and 3G to at least 4G, and tackle persistent latency issues.
According to the NCC, closing these gaps is critical to improving digital inclusion, enhancing user experience, and unlocking the full potential of next-generation mobile technology in Nigeria.