Broadband penetration in Nigeria declined for the second consecutive month in July to 48.01% as the number of Nigerians having access to high-speed internet dropped.
Earlier in June, broadband penetration had declined from 48.8% in May to 48.7%.
This came despite a recent assurance by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) that country was on course to achieve the 70% penetration target by this year-end as set in the National Broadband Policy (NBP 2020-2025).
According to data released by the NCC, the number of broadband connections in Nigeria declined from 105.7 million in June to 104 million in July.
Aside from the overall 70% target at the end of 2025, which is set to be missed, the country has missed several other targets set in the broadband plan.
Going by the timelines of the Plan, broadband penetration in the country was expected to be at 50% at the end of 2023. However, at the end of the year, penetration stood at 43.71% and rose marginally to 44.43% at the end of 2024.
The slow pace of movement in the implementation of the Broadband Plan is being blamed on several challenges inhibiting the deployment of infrastructure.
Specifically, high cost of Right of Way charges by states is seen as one major bottleneck as operators are paying through the nose to states, with the exception seven states that have waived the fees.
As of March 2020, when the National Broadband Plan was launched, Nigeria’s broadband penetration stood at 39.85% with some 75.4 million Nigerians connected to broadband service.
This shows that Nigeria has not really made much progress with the implementation and results in the last four years.
However, Nigeria is seeing steady growth in data consumption despite the slow pace of broadband penetration. Naijaonpoint reported that data consumption in the country hit an all-time high of 1.1 million terabytes in July 2025.