Nigeria: MTN to Buy UBA-Owned XS Broadband in N4 Billion Deal

South African cellular operator, MTN Nigeria has agreed to acquire XS Broadband Limited (Formerly UBA Capital & Trust Ltd), a fixed wireless access licensee owned by UBA PLC in a transaction that may be closed at about N4 billion.

Technology Times checks revealed that the mobile operator has agreed to the purchase of the company which has an FWA licence covering 24 states including the niche Lagos market.

Coming after the $65 million purchase of 100 per cent stake in VGC Communications Limited, it is yet another major acquisition by the Nigerian mobile market leader which accounted for 13,384,000 out of the 44,301,000 subscribers recorded across the African operations of the MTN Group as at March 31, this year.

Both companies are keeping details of the transaction close to their chest for now even as details emerged that MTN has sought an assurance that the licence granted XS Broadband will be renewed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms sector regulator that will okay the proposed ownership transfer.

The buy also comes just as indications emerged today that three companies, MTN Nigeria, IPNX and Naija Wi-Fi Consortium have been selected for the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI) promoted by NCC.

‘Broadband’ is the popular industry lingo for ‘always-on’ high speed Internet access that delivers an enhanced user experience for surfing the internet and downloading multimedia files.

Under the SABI project, financial and other incentives will be offered by the regulator to service providers to enable them roll out broadband services in selected cities in the country as part of a broad programme to spread a nationwide ‘broadband blanket’ over Nigeria.

Official sources confirmed anonymously to Technology Times that the three companies were selected out of about 59 companies including some of the top Internet service providers (ISPs) in the market that submitted expressions of interest (EoIs) to benefit from the SABI programme.

Naija Wifi, a consortium of 26 players in the Nigerian ICT market that have pooled resources together had proposed a $26 million incentive in its bid to deliver affordable broadband service under the programme.

“The final details are now been worked out after which NCC is expected to formally announce the names of the selected companies, the scope of their rollout and depth of funding to be made available to them and this is likely to take place this month”, a source confirmed to Technology Times.

NCC had earlier announced that it will offer incentives to provide broadband services in states of the federation in order to provide a ‘broadband blanket’ and boost internet access across underserved and unserved areas under its programme to broaden universal service.

Source: This Day