A survey carried out by PwC has revealed states in northern Nigeria are the least covered by network operators, with only around 75 percent covered.
The states that are least covered according to the report are Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba and Yobe, all in the north eastern part of Nigeria.
The report, ‘Interconnection Costing Model Study’, also said the extent of coverage in other regions such as the North West, North Central and South-East are 87 percent, 82 percent and 81 percent respectively.
In the South West region of the country, only 86 per cent of the region is covered by networks while in the South South region, only 79 percent if covered. The country’s commercial capital city of Lagos has the largest coverage, with 89 percent.
The report also noted that in 2012, Nigeria’s operators handled more than 22.3 billion minutes of telephone conversations despite the various natural and man-made disasters that befell the facilities of the GSM companies in certain parts of the nation.
Apart from the volume of calls put through, the PwC report also revealed around 1.8 billion SMSs were sent in 2012, representing a three million rise from 2011.
Describing the rise in SMS volume, PwC’s Quality Assurance Partner, Alastair Macpherson, said outgoing SMS on-net increased from 911 million in 2011 to 958 million in 2012 and outgoing SMS to other networks increased from 316 million to 449 million.
In addition, incoming SMS from other networks also recorded increase by hitting 421 million from 327 million.
However, analysts believe with the introduction of a flat SMS rate across network, the figures could drastically change in 2013.
