5G spectrum auction holds Dec 13 at $197.4m reserve price – NCC

*Offers N20m grant to Nigerian tech startups

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says the upcoming spectrum auction for 5G services will hold December 13, 2021.

Director of Spectrum Administration at Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Oluwatoyin Asaju, announced this on Thursday at a stakeholders’ consultative forum in Lagos.

The commission had fixed the reserve price for the 3.5GHz spectrum auction at $197.4 million.

A reserve price is a minimum amount that a seller will accept as the winning bid. In bidding process, it prevents a bidder who offers a price lower than what the owner will accept from winning the auction

Asaju said the commission would first hold a mock auction on December 10, 2021.

“A reserve price of approximately N75 billion (Seventy-Five Billion) Naira only, equivalent to One Hundred and Ninety-Seven Million and Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars only (USS 197,400,000.00) is to be used.

“An Initial Bid Deposit (IBD) equal to 10% of the reserve price is adopted in line with the previous auction,” Asaju said.

Asaju said the ascending clock auction process will be used.

He said the auction will be software-based, adding that provisions have been made for the manual auction should the auction software fail during the auction process.

On eligibility criteria for network operators, Asaju said only licensees with 100 percent regulatory compliance would be allowed to participate in the auction.

“New entrants are allowed to participate in the auction in addition to existing licensees,” he added.

“Licensees with outstanding debts that have secured Management’s approval for a payment plan will be allowed to participate.”

According to the NCC, the stakeholder engagement forum is an important regulatory prerequisite for the planned auction of the 3.5Ghz spectrum, which is necessary for the rollout of the 5G network in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the NCC has offered N5 million each to four Nigerian tech startups for their innovative digital projects.

This was done at the grand prize award ceremony for ‘Virtual NCC Internet of Things (IoT) Code Camp and Hackathon 2021’, which was held in the commission’s headquarters on Thursday.

Speaking at the event, the Executive Vice-Chairman, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who was represented by NCC’s Director of New Media and Information Security, Alhasan Haru, noted NCC’s priority for finding indigenous innovative solutions to the challenges of the industry and society.

He said that the event is in line with the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan 2020, which underpins the need to promote local production, local services, local innovation, and the use of local materials, according to the Mandate of the Presidential Executive Order 5 of 2017, on the Promotion of Nigerian Content in Contracts and Science, Engineering and Technology.

“Finding indigenous innovative solutions to the challenges of the industry and society is a policy that is very dear to me, as a person as well as to the Commission and this is very much in tandem with the policy of the current administration for Nigerians to rise up and find enduring solutions to the challenges facing the country.

“Today’s event aligns with the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan 2020, which underpins the need to promote local production, local services, local innovation, and the use of local materials, in line with the Mandate of the Presidential Executive Order 5 of 2017, on the Promotion of Nigerian Content in Contracts and Science, Engineering and Technology,” he said.

He further stated that the country is going through some challenges, which digital solutions may be useful in addressing them.

“It is evident that our nation is currently going through a phase in its quest for nation-building, faced with social, environmental and security challenges such as Banditry, Kidnapping and Militancy.

These ugly developments have in recent times kept security on the front burner of our national discourse and limiting our socio-economic development.

“The challenge of e-waste management has been exacerbated by the increased consumer appetites for digital services and smart devices. This has resulted in the production of huge tons of e-waste annually and most of them are disposed of in manners that constitute serious health and environmental challenges.

“In this year’s Hackathon, our goal is to challenge the creativity and harness the innovative prowess of our young digital-driven population to develop smart Solutions leveraging emerging technologies in addressing the challenges of Banditry, Kidnapping and e-waste management,” he added.

Two startups, namely Clearflow system Hub and Aelaus Engineering teams/Hyech Electronics solutions, focused on Internet of Things for kidnapping and banditry, while the other two startups, Kalibotics and CyberNorth Tech, focused on assistive robotics for effective e-waste management.