Disconnection put on hold as Glo Nigeria is given 21-day grace period

Nigerian operator Globacom (Glo) has been granted an additional 21 days starting from January 17, 2024, to settle interconnect fees owed to MTN in order to avoid a network disconnection scheduled by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

"The Commission is pleased to announce that the parties have now reached an agreement to resolve all outstanding issues between them," the regulator said in a statement.

"The Commission expects MTN and Glo to resolve all outstanding issues within the 21 days," it continued.

Earlier this month, the NCC issued a disconnection notice to Glo, permitting MTN to disconnect Glo subscribers over years of unpaid interconnect fees estimated at 1.6 billion Naira (US$1.8 million).

However, at the time a Glo official told a journalist in Lagos that the company didn't owe MTN interconnection fees.

The disconnection would have meant that Glo customers would not be able to make calls to users on the MTN network, although they would still be able to receive MTN calls and calls between Glo subscribers would not have been affected.

The NCC said that despite the reprieve, interconnect debts must be settled by all operating companies as a necessary component towards compliance with regulatory obligations of all licensees.

"It is obligatory that mobile network operators (MNOs) and other licensees in the telecom industry must keep to the terms and conditions of their licenses, especially as contained in their interconnection agreements," the NCC concluded.

Disconnection fights

The disconnection dispute between Nigerian telcos has been happening for quite a while.

In July 2019, MTN partially disconnected Glo subscribers for non-payment of interconnection fees amounting to N4.4 billion ($5 million at the time).

Disconnection would have meant that Glo customers would not be able to make calls to users on the MTN network, although they would still be able to receive calls from MTN users. (Source: Image by wirestock on Freepik)

That suspension ended when Glo made a partial payment of N2.6 billion and made commitments to settle the remaining debt.

In October 2019, the NCC also authorized Airtel Nigeria to disconnect Glo partially from its telecoms network.

Nigerian mobile market

The 21-day reprieve impacts about almost 62.5 million Glo subscribers in Nigeria.

According to statistics from market research company Omdia, a sister company of Connecting Africa, the telco was the second-largest mobile operator in Nigeria at the end of 2023.

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Omdia reports that MTN was the leading mobile operator in Nigeria over the same period with around 79 million subscribers.

Airtel Nigeria is the third-largest operator with almost 60.7 million mobile users, leaving 9Mobile in fourth place with almost 14.2 million subscribers.

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*Top image source: Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa