To accelerate the deployment of Fifth Generation (5G) services in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has put up an additional two slots of spectrum in the 3.5GHz band for sale by the end of 2022.
The process, which was made public on October 21, 2022, when the Draft Information Memorandum (IM) for the auction was published on the Commission’s website, asked stakeholders to review the IM in order to provide comments before the IM was reviewed on November 16, 2022.
The Commission will begin accepting submissions on November 21, 2022, and the final IM is scheduled for publication on December 18, 2022. The Pre-Qualification Stage, the required Intention-To-Bid Deposit (IBD) payment deadline, and the application deadline are all slated for December 5, 2022.
On December 5, 2022, qualified bidders would be contacted; on the same day, notice and publication of the Mock Auction and Auction date would be given. The actual Auction is scheduled to take place on December 19, 2022, three days after the Mock Action, on December 16, 2022.
On December 21st, 2022, the publication of provisional bid winners and the announcement of provisional license awards are expected to usher the process into its grant stage.
The year 2023 will open with the payment for Spectrum Licence and Operational Licence, where applicable, on 20th January 2023 and on the 23rd of January 2023, the auction process will be concluded with the publication of the result.
Meanwhile, as stated in the Material Memorandum, the Commission reserves the right to make additional information accessible by the publication of new documentation following the release of the IM. Therefore, interested parties are recommended to routinely monitor the Commission’s website for updates in order to stay up to date on developments in the licensing process.