The mobile phone has evolved from a voice apparatus to a multi-functional device that offers increasingly sophisticated applications. No other device has come close to the sophistication, the versatility and the power of the mobile phone.
Convergent technologies have now combined the mobile phone and various services – web, email, mobile TV, FM radio, card reader, camera, mobile computer, e-books, music player, voice recorder, flash drive, games, and GPS navigation, among others.
Actually, there’s no point calling it “phone” any longer. Perhaps just “mobile” will do.
The rest of this page provides useful information about mobile technology in general and mobile networks and services in Nigeria, more specifically.
When Did Mobile Phone Services take off in Nigeria?
The first mobile cellular services began in 1993 with Mtel, but was elitist and restricted in every way.
Later, other CDMA operators offered limited mobile phone services as a small segment of their bouquet of services.
Widespread mobile services however took off in August 2001 when Airtel Nigeria (then Econet) launched the first commercial GSM services in Nigeria. In a few years, Nigeria was toasted everywhere as one of the fastest-growing mobile markets in the world. Nigeria has since overtaken South Africa to become Africa’s largest mobile market.
Mobile Networks in Nigeria
- MTN – GSM/UMTS/HSDPA networks; DVB-H – 40,540,281 active subscribers – www.mtnonline.com
- GloMobile – GSM/UMTS/HSDPA networks; DVB-H – 19,488,756 active subscribers – www.gloworld.com
- Airtel – GSM/UMTS/HSDPA networks – 15,969,943 active subscribers – www.ng.airtel.com
- Etisalat – GSM network – 7,835,673 active subscribers – www.etisalat.com.ng
- Visafone – CDMA/EVDO networks – 2,596,401 active subscribers – www.visafone.com.ng
- Starcomms – CDMA/EVDO networks – 1,154,837 active subscribers – www.starcomms.com
- ZoomMobile – CDMA/EVDO networks – 833,298 active subscribers – www.zoomnigeria.com
- Mtel – GSM network – 258,520 active subscribers
**All active subscribers figures as at December 2010
Source: NCC
Total Active Mobile Lines as at June 2011
- GSM: 84,093,173
- CDMA: 5,558,612
Total: 89, 651, 785
Source: NCC
BlackBerry Subscription
Estimates gathered from sources in Nigeria’s four GSM networks indicate that there were now about 1.2 million BlackBerry handsets active inside of the said networks put together as at July 2011.
About half of the said 1.2 million users of the handsets subscribe to the BlackBerry service, up from about 300,000 in May 2011.
Glossary of GSM Terms & Data Speeds
Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) is the most popular standard for mobile phones in the world. Below are the data services currently available on GSM networks in Nigeria.
- GPRS – General Packet Radio Service; a 2G standard (theoretical top speed: 115 Kbit/s)
- EGPRS – Enhanced General Packet Radio Service; a 2G standard (theoretical top speed: 384 kbit/s). EGPRS is popularly known as EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution)
- 3G/UMTS – Universal Mobile Telecommunications System; a 3G standard; theoretical top speed: 384 kbps
- 3.5G/HSDPA – High Speed Data Packet Access; a 3G standard; theoretical top speed: 7.2 mbps
- DVB-H – Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld. A mobile broadcast technology that allows for the digital terrestrial broadcast of live television channels to a mobile phone.
Glossary of CDMA2000 Terms & Data Speeds
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a competing mobile technology to GSM. Below are the data services currently available on CDMA networks in Nigeria.
- 1x – theoretical top speed: 153 kbps
- EVDO Rev. 0 – Evolution-Data Optimized; theoretical top speed: 2.4 Mbit/s
- EVDO Rev. A – Evolution-Data Optimized; theoretical top speed: 3.1 Mbit/s
Nigerian GSM Frequencies
If roaming to Nigeria, or intending to import GSM mobile phones into the country, be sure to note the following specifications required for the Nigerian market:
- 2G network: GSM 900 / 1800
- 3G network: HSDPA 2100
3G in Nigeria
In 2007, four applicants were successful in obtaining a 10MHz lot each in the 2GHz band for third generation (3G) mobile services. The successful operators were:
- Alheri Engineering
- Celtel Nigeria
- GloMobile
- MTN Nigeria Communications
In early 2008, GloMobile launched the first commercial 3G service on their UMTS/HSPA network, followed closely by MTN.
Mobile TV
At the moment, only MTN and GloMobile offer mobile TV (DVB-H) services in the country. They both have Dstv Mobile service available to subscribers with type handsets.
Quarterly Guide to Mobile in Nigeria
We publish mobileRave, an electronic (PDF) info-tainment magazine that presents consumer-targeted information on mobile devices and services in Nigeria, including prevailing voice, SMS and data tariffs, plans and configuration settings. Subscribe to mobileRave.
Check your Mobile Browser User Agent & IP Address
Check your mobile browser’s User Agent and your network’s IP address.
What is a Smartphone?
A smartphone is a mobile device with voice and data capabilities and which runs an operating system that allows the installation and running of third party native applications.
Some of the available smartphone operating systems are:
- Symbian
- BlackBerry
- iOS
- Android
- Windows Mobile / Windowsphone
- WebOS
- BadaOS
Some useful Articles to help you on your way
- Choosing a Mobile Device
- BlackBerry Questions and Answers
- How to use Nokia C3 (or other Nokia phone) as modem
- Get better battery life on your smartphone
Mobile Data Settings
If you ever need to manually configure your mobile for web browsing, here are settings for Nigerian networks.
MTN
- Account Name: MTN GPRS
- Access Point Name (APN): web.gprs.mtnnigeria.net
- Username: web
- Password: web
- IP Address: 10.199.212.2
- Port: 9201 (for WAP) or 8080 (for HTML)
Airtel
- Account Name: Airtel Mobile Internet
- Access Point Name (APN): internet.ng.airtel.com
- Username: internet (or blank)
- Password: internet (or blank)
- IP Address: none
- Port: none
Glo
- Account Name: Glo High Speed Internet
- Access Point Name (APN): gloflat
- Username: flat
- Password: flat
- IP Address: none
- Port: none
Etisalat
- Account Name: Etisalat
- Access Point Name (APN): etisalat
- Username: none
- Password: none
- IP Address: none
- Port: none
Visafone
- Server IP: 192.168.165.201
- Server Port: 8080
- Server Dial: #777 (optional on some phones)
- Login Name: wap@wap.com
- Password: wap
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