NCC decries over telephone penetration

NIGERIA'S telephone penetration now stands at 103.91 per cent, the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) has said.

  The teledensity is contained in the commission's Monthly Subscriber Data, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos.

  According to the data, the country's teledensity stands at 103.91 per cent as at the end of April, with active telephone lines now 145,476,326.

  NCC said the teledensity was calculated based on population estimate of 126 million up till December 2005, and from December 2006 it was based on a population estimate of 140 million.

  It said from December 2001 to 2006, teledensity was based on connected subscribers and from December 2007, it was based on active subscriptions on mobile networks.

  The data showed that industry teledensity stood at 92.42 per cent as at April 2014 and that increased by 11.49 per cent to reach 103.91 per cent by April 2015.

  In May 2014, it moved up to 93.70 per cent; 94.84 per cent in June and at the end of July, the figure declined to 94.42 per cent, adding that in August, September and October, the figures moved to 95.20 per cent, 96.08 per cent and 96.87 per cent, respectively.

  In November and December, the telephony penetration increased to 97.60 per cent and 99.39 per cent, respectively.

  The teledensity reached 100.59 per cent in January 2015, and increased to 101.85 per cent in February, and 102.81 per cent in the month of March 2015.

  The teledensity increased by 1.10 per cent to attain 103.91 per cent in April.

  The proportional growth in teledensity showed that access to telephone services is getting deeper in the country.