MTN Nigeria, the leading telecommunications company, has shed light on the network outage experienced by millions of subscribers on Wednesday, attributing the disruption to “multiple fibre cuts.”
With an impressive subscriber base of 87,038,768 as of December 2023, MTN accounts for 38.79% of the total market share, making it the largest Mobile Network Operator (MNO) in the country.
The outage left subscribers struggling to make calls and access data services, sparking rumors about potential repercussions for non-compliance with the National Identification Number (NIN) registration deadline set by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Responding to the situation on X (formerly Twitter), MTN acknowledged the challenges faced by users and explained, “You have been experiencing challenges connecting to the network due to a major service outage caused by multiple fibre cuts affecting voice and data services.”
The company assured subscribers that its engineers are diligently working to restore full service, with gradual improvements already observed in some areas.
Meanwhile, the NCC issued a directive to telecom service providers to disconnect subscribers who fail to link their phone numbers to their NIN by February 28, 2024.
Emphasizing the critical importance of national security, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Aminu Maida, reiterated the necessity for telecom consumers to comply with the NIN-SIM card linkage requirement.
