Nigeria: NCC suspends Spectrum Trading Guidelines for telecommunication industry

Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has suspended the Spectrum Trading Guidelines 2018 for the telecommunications industry, a statement from the commission said Wednesday, according to a news report by This Day.

NCC Board of Commissioners, who took the decision to suspend the spectrum trading guidelines at a recent meeting, has since informed all licensed telecommunications operators, prospective investors, industry stakeholders, and the general public to that effect.

NCC had before 2018, auctioned spectrum licenses to telecom operators, which include 2.3GHz Spectrum, 2.6GHz Spectrum, Mobile Network Service Spectrum, Rural Telephony Spectrum, among others.

The different spectrum licenses allow telecom operators to roll out different telecoms services for national, state, and regional purposes.

In 2018, NCC came up with some guidelines that would authorize the resale of such a spectrum license by the original owner to other interested telecoms operators who are in need of the license, where the original owner of such license is yet to roll out services with the spectrum license.

According to NCC, the suspension of the 2018 trading guidelines would allow for fresh guidelines that would make it more flexible for operators to trade on, in line with the new National Broadband Plan (2020-2025).