Cellular Network Adoption in Old and Modern Nigeria:

Moving from 0G to 5G

The age-long tradition of human communication has agreeably been one of the major denominators of what contributes to a healthy societal relationship. Humans as instinctively sociable species are especially known for wanting to be understood and seeking out a sense of belonging that often comes with a person-to-person or persons-to-person interaction. we’ve certainly come a long way from the cavemen we once were, who could only communicate with fellow tribesmen in close proximity to figuring out how to effectively communicate with ourselves and others in any part of the world regardless of distance or even difference in language via AI-powered translators. We evolved from grunting and gesticulating as a primary means of communicating, to developing a better sense of language via pronounceable words and phrases. Despite these changes, the human communication mechanism still faced the common disadvantage of not being distance friendly, as we could only then talk with people in close physical proximity to ourselves, we needed a way to communicate regardless of the distance barrier. Our history tells us of how our ancestors imbibed the use of carrier pigeons, letters, and message riders to beat the distance barrier which seemed to work, but as creatures prone to change, we kept on experimenting with new and better ways to achieve faster and easier means of communication. The invention of the telephone by Alexandra Graham in 1876 marked an undeniable milestone that kickstarted the digitization of human communication.

Amongst the list of beneficiaries of the digital communication fever in Africa is Nigeria. Nigeria, home to about 206 million people and currently has four actively working network providers namely; MTN, GLO, AIRTEL, 9Mobile with a total amount of about 53,000 base transceiver stations(BSC) also known as cell towers nationwide.

AIRTEL

“The smartphone network” as popularly advertised is the premiere network service provider in Nigeria. Econet(now Airtel) was officially launched on August 4, 2001. Over the years, they’ve gone through a series of rebranding processes, initially, the company started with the brand name ECONET then changed it later on to Vmobile, then to Zain, then to Celtel, then presently to Airtel. Airtel has over 58 million subscribers nationwide.

MTN

“Everywhere you go”, as proudly advertised, was the second network service provider in Nigeria. The South-African owned company which was formerly known as ‘M-Cell’ before regrading to ‘MTN’, started operation in Nigeria in August 2001. They are currently the largest mobile network operator in Africa and the eighth largest mobile network operator in the world, having over 272 million subscribers and providing services in about 223 cities and towns across the country and active in over 20 countries worldwide.

GLO

“Grandmasters of data” is the slogan for the GLO network service. It was founded by Mike Adenuga, a Nigerian entrepreneur, and was launched on the 29th of August, 2003. GLO was the pioneer of per-second billing as its unique offering, which led to the reduction in the tariff placed on calls which formerly ran on a per-minute billing system at N50. Their per-second billing system made it cheaper and easier for Nigerians to afford network services. Another game-changing move they played was the downsizing of the expensive cost of obtaining a SIM card, back then, obtaining a SIM card came at costs ranging from N14,000 to N25,000 which limited the supply mostly to the richer citizens who could afford it. GLO downsized the price to as low as N500 and eventually went on to distribute it free of charge making network service privileges versatility saturated in the economy. GLO mobile currently has over 25 million subscribers country-wide and is operational in 180 countries worldwide.

9Mobile

“Here for you, here for 9ja” is the slogan of this network service. 9Mobile was launched in September 2008 in Nigeria. They currently have over 13 million subscribers in Nigeria and are operational in over 160 countries worldwide. They were formerly known as Etisalat before later rebranding to 9mobile after a major crisis had hit the company which led to a transfer of ownership to Taleology Nigeria in 2018.

STARLINK

Starlink is soon to be the latest addition to the club of service providers in Nigeria. Starlink’s parent company ‘SpaceX’ has been making moves towards injecting itself into the African community since 2021 and was awarded a license of operation including a 10- year international gateway license and a five-year internet service provider license on the 22nd of May, 2022. Starlink promises to be the fastest network in the country and also boasts of the capability to reach both the urban and rural/remote axis of the nation after launching, they have an estimated network speed of 50–200mbps in downlink and 10–20mbps in uplink speeds and an unlimited data margin usage for subscribers. They are currently available in about 32 countries worldwide and have launched closely to 2,000 low earth orbital(LEO) which they use for providing internet services with over 1,500 in operational orbit. The usage of this high-end internet service does not come free to users, subscribers would be required to pay an estimated amount of $2,500 for the full kit setup which will include a Wi-Fi router, terminal, and mounting tripod which can all be set up without needing professional help and would be fully operational in less than 30 minutes after setting up. It will also come with a $500 monthly subscription fee for the continuation of internet services.

0G

The 0G or Pre-cellular phase of cellular networking came into effect in the 1940s, During this time, there was no Nigeria, or at least the country wasn’t collectively called that then but rather had two factions back namely The Northern Nigeria Protectorate and The Southern Nigeria Protectorate. This was during the colonial period of Nigerian civilization.

0G ran on a push-to-talk (PTT) technology in which as the name implies; you had to button a button to speak and reactively release it to listen for a response. Though it certainly marked a new dawn of a new communication age, it came with issues such as; it was too big to be carried about and had to be mounted on cars, it wasn’t until later on that a briefcase version was introduced. Most people during this era didn’t benefit from this advancement due to it largely being inaccessible to most people due to cost.

1G

The 1G technology worked via analog technology which used signals to transfer information and was limited to voice notes, having a maximum speed of 2.4 Kbps(kilobytes per second) with a data transmission length of 150mHz. It came with issues such as; short battery life, long charging time, poor voice quality, and short talking time where only three phone conversations could take place at once in an entire city. 1G was first commercially released in Tokyo Japan in 1979 by NTT(Nippon Telephone Corporation). Interestingly, Japan is also the First Nation to be fully wirelessly connected. This era also included Nigeria’s participation in telecommunication which officially started in 1886 during the colonial period. At the time, the British company Cables & Wireless Ltd used a telegraphic submarine cable line connected Lagos to London which led to the installation of phone lines in various parts of the country including; Ilorin, Calabar, and Ibadan. Also, it was during that time in 1985 that the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited(NITEL) was established. NITEL was a government-owned organization formed from the merging of two government-owned firms; Posts and telecommunications(P&T) and Nigerian external communications(NET). The monopolized government establishment functioned in providing radio-telegram and also telex services to the public, sending cablegram messages via submarine at sea, and erecting public telephone booths. Being mostly built on analog infrastructure, they faced several problems some of which were an inefficient billing system, and phone line congestion.

2G

The second generation of cellular networking 2G has various standards which include the GSM, GPRS, and EDGE. The GSM short for Global Systems for Mobile communication also referred to as Landline was first released in Finland in 1991 by a radio linger. GSM implemented digital modulation instead of analog technology.

The next 2G standard is GPRS(General Packet Radio Service), which was first standardized and released by ETSI(1993). The major difference it has from GSM is its use of packet switching technology where all information to be sent to the destination was divided into packets that could be sent in parallel. It has a maximum speed of 53 kbps downlink and 26.8 kbps uplink which allowed GPRS to introduce MMS(Multi Media Services) giving users the advantage of sending media-like pictures. It also supports IP to connect to the internet.

Another standard is the EDGE(Enhanced Data for Global Evolution) with its symbol “E”, it was first released by AT&A in 2003. It has a maximum speed of 236.8 kbps downlink and 59.2 kbps uplink and used 8psk encoding which was aided further by its Time division multiple access which unlike FDMA splits each channel into time slots thereby allowing multiple people could connect on the same channel but they’d transmit and receive one after the other with synchronized time slots allowing more people to use the same tower.

During this time, Nigeria sought more reforms concerning telecommunications which led to the deregulation of NITEL and the commissioning of the Nigerian Communications Commissions(NCC) as induced by Decree 75 of 1992. The introduction of the NCC was aimed to solve pre-existing issues which centered on addressing its poor commutation services. The NCC’s major aims were the;

•Licensing.

•Regulating and supervising performance standards.

•Enforcing the laws guiding the operation of telecommunication service of service providers.

•Middleman between consumers and service providers.

3G

The third generation of cellular networking 3G was released in Japan(1998) by NTT and was not commercially released till 2001 in South Korea by SK Telecom. It uses CDMA(Code Division Multiple Access) for multiplexing and packet switching using mainly frequencies such as; 850Hz, 1900Hz, and 2100Hz. Its speed is largely dependent on the device’s mobility. For a moving device, its maximum speed is 384 kbps and for non-moving devices, its maximum speed was 2mbps(megabytes per second). This radical increase in transmission speed ushered in new advantages such as video calling, streaming, and mobile internet, and people stopped paying based on the time used for internet services but rather based on the data used. The 3G network has two standards namely; HSPA and HSPA+.

The HSPA(high-speed internet access) fondly known as 3.5G with its symbol “H” is the upgraded version of WCDMA technology. Its maximum theoretical speed is 5.76 Mbps uplink and 14.4 Mbps whilst in practice, it had a maximum speed of 200 kbps uplink and 500kbps downlink. The HSPA+ also known as the 3.7G with its symbol “H+ “ is the evolved version of HSPA. It used MIMO(multiple inputs and multiple outputs), which involved the use of more than one antenna for sending data and more than one antenna for receiving data. It has a maximum speed of approximately 22mbps uplink and 168mbps downlink.

3G was first launched in Nigeria by GLOBACOM in Lagos, Abuja, and Port-Harcourt then later on to other parts of the states. 3G-compatible phones were also built for end-users to have access to 3G networks. Some of them include iPhone, Samsung, Tecno, Infinix, Gionee, etc

4G

Since the inception of 3G, the need to grow into a faster, data transmission slows and quality gave rise to 4G technology. The fourth generation of cellular network technology ‘4G’ kicked off in 2004 by ITV but was not commercially released till 2009 in Oslo-Norway. It focused on two standards namely; WiMAX and LTE.

WiMAX short for ‘World wide Interoperability for Microwave Access was first introduced in South Korea in June 2006. It included a set of wireless broadband communication standards based on IEEE 802.16. It supports both video and voice, and also internet data. .The second standard was the LTE(Long Term Evolution) which is the most used of the two standards. It uses a fully packet switching technology based on IP using MIMO and OFTMA. It supports frequencies from 700mHz to 2700mHz which made data transmission possible with low latency.

The 4G technology came with benefits such as; easier mobile web access, cloud computing, and video conferencing with multiple active participants. 4G compatible phones were built for end-users to have access to 4G networks which were also in circulation in Nigeria. Some of them include iPhone, Samsung, Tecno, Infinix, Nokia, etc

5G

The advent of new technological ideas and inventions such as; self-driving cars, remote surgery equipment, smart cities, and sensors, demanded a much faster mode of cellular transmission which gave rise to the 4G technology. The advent of 5G has made a huge impact globally with over $13 trillion of global economic output and the creation of over 23 million jobs. It has various standards for different use cases, it uses beam forming and massive MIMO(64x64) using large sets of antennas to send and receive signals which exponentially increases reliability.5G is based on an orthogonal frequency division multiple access(OFDMA) which works by splitting each channel into dozens of sub-frequencies and broadcasts a different signal on each one. It not only allows a user’s device to send and receive more data but also allows more users to share the same frequency.

MTN is the first set of 5G adopters in Nigeria alongside Mafab communications who both paid $273.6 million each to NCC for the 5G license. MTN currently has over 190 active 5G sites across the federation in seven states including Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Owerri, and Maiduguri. 5G offers speeds as fast as 1000mbps depending on the environment’s cell service. 5G compatible phones were also built for end-users to have access to 5G networks. Some of them include iPhone, Samsung, Tecno, Infinix, and Redmi.

Conclusion

The rate of growth and development the country has experienced is certainly enough for her citizens to look over the horizon for better, faster, and more efficient cellular networking advancements.

Thanks for reading!