The federal government yesterday earned a total of $547.2 million as MTN Nigeria and Mafab Communications Ltd emerged winners of the keenly contested 3.5 GHz spectrum auction for 5G deployment in the country.
Both companies paid $273.6 million each, after 11 bidding rounds in a live auction held in Abuja.
MTN also paid $15,900,000 to get lot one of the spectrum, while Mafab paid an additional $11,120, 000 million to get lot two.
The auction in which three qualified bidders MTN Nigeria, Mafab Communications Ltd, and Airtel Networks Ltd, participated was done using the ascending clock auction system.
The reserve price per lot was initially set at $197,400,00 but was raised repeatedly by the auction manager, reaching $275,904,886.25 at round 11, at which point Airtel discontinued, after which the bidding process moved to the assignment stage.
The assignment stage is an auction mechanism to resolve any such conflicts and where the winning bidder (s) will specify the date for the payment of the upfront fee.
At the assignment stage, MTN offered $15,900,00 and was assigned lot one, while Mafab offered $11,120,000 and awarded slot two at no extra cost.
The first slot (spectrum) is 3500-3600mhz while the second slot is 3700-3800mhz and the two winners are expected to pay in naira by February 24, 2022, at the prevailing exchange rate.
Announcing the main auction result, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said the provisional licence would be given to Mafab Communications Limited and MTN Nigeria.
According to Danbatta, the two winners entered into another stage of auction called the Assignment Stage to determine which operator takes a particular lot of the two lots that were auctioned.
