The days of the clunky elitist NITEL landlines that engendered endless queues at public phone booths are way past Nigerians. Since the advent of GSM, and for the better part of the past decade and a half, NITEL has gradually edged its way out of mainstream consciousness.
So it comes as no surprise that the Nigerian Communications Commission has officially declared the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) – and by extension MTEL – inactive, as they technically no longer contribute to the periodic subscriber information released by the NCC. MTEL is the GSM branch of NITEL that never really caught on.
The pioneering telecoms operator is joined in eternal oblivion by 13 other private telecoms, including former big CDMA names like Reltel and (surprise?) Starcomms. How the mighty have fallen.
According to the NCC, CDMA and fixed line networks currently account for only about 2% of the telecoms market. The remaining 98% is accounted for by the “big four” GSM networks. MTN remains Nigeria’s biggest telecoms provider with 46% of the market share.
