Teledensity rises by 110% in 2016

• Internet users decline by 536,346 subscribers in December

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that the country recorded increase in teledensity in 2016, ending the year with 110 per cent growth.

Telephone density or teledensity means the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area. It varies widely across the nations and also between urban and rural areas in a given country.

The fact was contained in the Monthly Internet Subscribers Data for December obtained by this medium in Lagos. The data showed that there were fluctuations in the growth rate.

While as at December 2016, the country recorded 154 million active telephony users, about 207 communities with about 40 million Nigerians nationwide are still without basic telecommunications services.

At the beginning of 2016 the country had 108.11 per cent teledensity. It later slumped and fluctuated between 106.16 per cent and 107.33 per cent from February to July 2016, for to peak in August at 109.14 per cent and in November it came to 109.96 per cent and by December, rose to 110.38 per cent.

The data also revealed that the number of internet users in Nigeria’s telecommunications networks drifted to 91,910,341 in December 2016.

The data showed that internet users on both Global System for Mobile communications, GSM and Code Division Multiple Access, CDMA, networks dropped by 536,346 in December as against 92,446,687 users recorded in December.

Out of the 91,910,341 internet users in December, 91,880,032 were on GSM networks, while 30,309 users were on CDMA networks while GSM service providers lost 536,346 internet customers after recording 91,880,032 users in December as against 92,416,378 in November.

Other details of the data showed that MTN had 31,753,369 subscribers browsing the internet on its network in the review period.

MTN was disclosed to have recorded a drop of 264,410 internet subscribers in December after recording 32,017,779 in November while Globacom has 27,010,178 customers surfing the net in December, revealing a decline of 112,714 users, from the 27,122,892 that surfed the internet on the network in November.

Airtel had 19,363,545 internet users in December, adding 219,845 customers to its November  record.