The cost burden of the 50 per cent telecoms service tariff hike may have been complicated by data depletion, overstretching the cost of broadband services for 170 million consumers, including businesses.

The last three weeks have not been pleasant for businesses and individuals that largely rely on the Internet to eke out a living, The Guardian said.

Besides the declining quality of service, data depletion has taken a new dimension in the last few weeks of tariff hike implementation.

Coincidentally, Multichoice, owners of DStv and GOtv, implemented another price hike of about 21 per cent from March 1, 2025, barely 12 months before the last. However, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) directed the firm to suspend the upward review.

The planned hike by Multichoice came at the time telecoms operators had just adjusted data prices by 50 per cent, deepening the woes of subscribers who are looking for ways to wriggle out of the financial burden caused by hard policies.

For many Nigerians, the price hike is a heavy blow to their already strained budgets. They are currently caught between subscribing to television services and paying for expensive data.

For Nigerians, the choice is to pick between watching DStv or paying for more data services to stream movies from Netflix, Showmax, and Amazon Prime Video, among others.

Data depletion occurs when a subscriber exhausts his or her data bundle before the expiration date or when more data than necessary is utilised for accessing online content.

From Lagos to Abuja, Enugu to Ondo, Zamfara to Rivers, it is the same agonising experience. Both large enterprises and small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) have started bearing the brunt amid macroeconomic challenges affecting the economy.

Checks showed that businesses relying on online platforms, cloud services and digital marketing face higher expenses due to increased data costs. This strains SMEs’ budgets.

In an economy battered by rising inflation, which only dropped from 34 per cent to 24 per cent recently after the consumer price index (CPI) was rebased, MTN, Airtel, Glo and 9mobile have adjusted their prices, with some charging as much as N120,000 for large data plans, forcing many to rethink their Internet spending.

As of January 2025, statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) showed that there were 141 million Internet users via the narrowband (GSM), while broadband penetration stood at 45 per cent. Data consumption has increased to 1,000,930.6 terabytes.

With the new tariff, MTN’s revised data prices showed the 1.8GB monthly plan now goes for N1,500, against the previous 1.5GB plan priced at N1,000. The 20GB plan has been adjusted to N7,500, up from N5,500, while the 15GB plan now costs N6,500, rising from N4,500.

Under this new pricing regime, Airtel has replaced its cheapest monthly data plan of 1.2GB plan for N1,000 with 2GB for N1,500.

Other changes include 3GB for N2, 000 (from 1.5GB at N1, 200), 4GB for N2, 500 (formerly 3GB at N1, 500), and 8GB for N3, 000 (formerly 4.5GB at N2, 000). Other adjustments include 10GB for N4, 000 (formerly 6GB at N2, 500), 13GB for N5, 000 (from 10GB at N3, 000), 18GB for N6, 000 (formerly 15GB at N4, 000) and 25GB for N8, 000 (replacing 18GB at N5, 000).

Further, the 75GB monthly bundle, which costs N16, 000 has been renamed as plan, costing N20, 000; 100GB for two months, costing N20, 000 has been upgraded to 150GB to cost N40, 000, while 400GB for three months, which cost N50,000 is now upgraded to 480GB to cost N120,000.

Airtel’s call rates rose to 25 kobo per second from about 18 kobo per second. Like MTN, Airtel has left some tariff plans untouched. For instance, the 5GB plan/week for N1,500 remains unchanged.

With the new tariffs, some workers will spend as much as 15 per cent of the N70,000 on communication.

For instance, MTN’s 20GB, which now costs N7,000, will take 10.7 per cent of subscribers’ national minimum wage. Airtel’s 24GB, which costs N5,000, means subscribers spend 7.1 per cent of their earnings on data.

For 25GB, which costs N8000, it amounts to 11.43 per cent of the minimum wage, while for data cost, which costs N20,000, a minimum wage subscriber would have spent about 28.5 per cent of his on the service.

The crisis may have further been compounded for router users. For instance, checks showed that before the new regime, 30G, which cost N8,000 for a monthly subscription had been reviewed upward alongside a caveat. Users now spend N20,000 for 100G, which must be exhausted within the period. Should the subscriber fail to exhaust it within the time frame on it and equally fail to renew within time, the remaining gigabyte will be lost, even if it remains 50GB. This and many other scenarios are what is playing out currently in the sector.

Subscribers are already using the social media platform to voice out their anger over the hike and other identified irregularities and have called on the regulator to intervene. An MTN subscriber, BestdataTelecom@Herdunney_1, described the new prices as too much, saying they are exploitative.

Another user, Mr Shuga@MistarShuga wrote, “MTN, please I am tired of doing monthly subscriptions 10 times in one month.” The_gentle@gentle_theB, “They have dried us up.”

The NCC explained that data can deplete quickly due to several factors including excessive usage of data-intensive apps like streaming videos, large file downloads, background app activity, automatic updates, poor network quality, and using older network technologies like 2G or 3G instead of the more efficient 4G or 5G. The NCC noted that these are all technical factors.

Albert Aina, an SME player, who is into the logistics business, lamented that data depletion tops his challenge currently. “Within two weeks, I have spent almost N20,000 on 50GB of data! Ordinarily, it was supposed to last me two months or at most one and a half, but the way it finishes is beyond me. Something needs to be done urgently. The prices should be reviewed! Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) should not disappoint Nigerians anymore. NLC must be decisive about the protest. All these back and forth should be stopped. NLC must rise and help stop these exploitations through the protest and possible boycotts of their services.”

The NLC had warned that if the telecommunications companies failed to revert to the old tariff by the end of February 2025, it would mobilise workers to shut down their operations nationwide by March 1, 2025.

NLC leadership through its chairman, Joe Ajaero, had promised to take the first step of resisting the arbitrary tariff hike by boycotting the services of MTN, Airtel, and Glo in the country.

Unfortunately, a few days before March 1, news filtered in that FG and NLC had agreed to a downward review of the price from 50 to 35 per cent.

Some telecoms senior executives have denied being aware of the 35 per cent price cut, saying that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has not communicated such a directive to them.

Subscriber groups and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have called on the Federal Government to reassess the tariff hike.

For instance, the Cloud Network Foundation (CNF) warned of its potential economic and social repercussions.

The Chairman of CNF, Abimbola Tooki, expressed concerns over the timing of the tariff adjustment, noting that it comes at a period when inflation is at an all-time high, significantly eroding the purchasing power of Nigerians.

Tooki emphasised that the Federal Government must consider the economic realities faced by citizens before implementing policies that could further strain their finances. He described the tariff hike as “insensitive and exploitative,” arguing that it could deepen the economic challenges facing millions of telecom users across the country.

“The sharp increase in telecom tariffs is being perceived as an attempt to further disempower the people,” he stated. “This move could inadvertently fuel civil society agitation, as it reinforces the narrative that the government is seeking to stifle the voice of the masses rather than empower them.”

The Chairman of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMs), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, advocated for a 10 per cent hike, stressing that the economy does not support about 50 per cent.

He revealed that the body is keen on taking the operators to court if the Federal Government and the NCC fail to act accordingly.

Telecoms expert, Kehinde Aluko, noted that high tariffs risk excluding millions of Nigerians from participating in digital transformation further widening the digital divide, saying it could also reverse some of the gains of leveraging telecoms to drive economic growth.

Aluko said access to affordable communication services is no longer a luxury but a necessity because it facilitates businesses including financial services and agriculture, education, healthcare, and social interactions.

“For small businesses and entrepreneurs who depend on reliable and affordable telecoms services to conduct their operations, the tariff hikes threaten to squeeze already thin profit margins and dampen economic activity,” he stated.

Telecom operators justified the 100 per cent tariff hike, citing a 12-year stagnancy in rate review, alongside a rise in energy costs, galloping inflation, and vandalism, among others as part of the challenges facing the sector.

There is also the volatility of the exchange rate. This has depressed the revenues and drained profits. Airtel recorded revenue of $738 million in 2024, down from $1.24 billion in 2023. It suffered a loss of $89 million in the 2023/2024 fiscal year due mainly to exchange rate volatility and devaluation of the naira.

Amid the crisis, the dominant player, MTN reported a loss of N514.9 billion in the nine months to September 2024 compared to N15 billion in the same period a year earlier due to inflation and naira volatility.

While assuring that telecoms services will improve within the first three months of securing the 50 per cent hike, the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, noted that QoS is based on factors of the economy and function of the environment, stressing that if the challenges that currently confront the sector remain, operators will need to review the situation and make the best decision.

Adebayo stressed that the tariff adjustment was essential for the survival of the telecommunications sector, stressing that the government should not rely on the sector to subsidise others.

“The other side of it is that the sector cannot be the subsidy for other sectors. Our cost should be reflective of the economy. Telecoms can’t be used as palliative.

“So, you can’t say because the cost of Garri and pepper and Okra has gone up, we now have to subsidise peoples’ living by providing services that are sold at lower than cost. It’s a matter of time before we start seeing the negatives.

“I think it is important that we need to charge rates that are sustainable, and we can’t stand as a subsidy for the problems of people in other sectors, which is not the problem caused by the operators,” he stated.

According to him, the government cannot outsource that problem to their network operators to solve for the public, saying the government needs to provide adequate palliatives to help people live, and telecom services cannot be used for those palliatives.

On the impact of a 50 per cent hike on service improvement, the Chief Corporate Services Officer, MTN, Tobe Okigbo, said there is a need to improve and expand the service and “in doing this, the first thing is to keep the service going, which is sustainability, which is what all the hike is about”.

Okigbo said for every connection, there is a license fee paid, stressing that keeping a customer comes at a cost, keeping the base stations running 24 hours comes at a cost, “so, as we improve on the current services, investments come in, it means expansion, which also means that more people will be covered.” (The Guardian)