- Africa’s 5G Race Faces a Harder Question: Who Pays for the Networks?
African telecommunications markets are experimenting with spectrum auctions, shared networks and new infrastructure partnerships as operators confront the enormous cost of building fifth-generation mobile networks across the continent.
The GSMA estimates that African mobile operators will invest more than US$76 billion in network infrastructure between 2024 and 2030. Yet the commercial case for 5G remains complicated by low consumer incomes, expensive capital, unreliable electricity and large populations that remain covered by mobile broadband but do not use it.
About 63 per cent of Africans live within mobile-broadband coverage without using mobile internet, according to the industry body. Meanwhile, 5G is expected to account for 21 per cent of connections by 2030.
The gap illustrates the investment problem. Operators must finance increasingly sophisticated networks before much of the addressable population can afford compatible devices, sufficient data or reliable electricity. Governments must therefore decide how to raise revenue from spectrum without making deployment commercially unviable.
Ghana has become an important test of that balancing act after moving away from an exclusive wholesale 5G structure and allowing operators to take more direct responsibility for spectrum and network investment.
The National Communications Authority removed Next Gen Infraco’s exclusive right to operate as the country’s sole wholesale 5G infrastructure provider in July. The regulator said a competitive wholesale market should encourage investment, innovation, network resilience and broader access.
The decision followed concerns about deployment speed and geographical concentration. When the NCA proposed removing the exclusivity clause in March, Next Gen Infraco reportedly had 49 operational 5G sites, of which 43 were located in Greater Accra.
That footprint highlighted the risk that a centrally designed network could reproduce the urban bias already visible across African telecommunications markets. Commercial investment naturally gravitates towards densely populated cities where usage and revenue prospects are stronger, leaving rural communities dependent on regulatory obligations or public support.
The NCA subsequently invited applications for spectrum in the 700 megahertz, 2.3 gigahertz and 3 gigahertz bands, attaching rollout obligations intended to support timely national deployment.
MTN Ghana committed US$202 million for additional spectrum, acquiring two lots in the 700 megahertz band for US$100.9 million and 150 megahertz in the 3 gigahertz band for US$101.1 million.
The 15-year licences will complement MTN’s existing holdings and support 5G expansion, additional capacity and improved service quality. The investment gives Ghana immediate spectrum revenue while transferring a significant share of the deployment obligation and commercial risk to the operator.
It also creates a hybrid market. Ghana retains a wholesale infrastructure provider but no longer relies exclusively on that company to determine the pace and reach of 5G deployment. Operators with capital and customers can invest directly, while infrastructure sharing remains available where duplication would be wasteful.
The success of this model will depend on whether competition accelerates coverage beyond Accra rather than concentrating rival networks in the same profitable urban areas. Spectrum payments are only the opening cost. Operators must still finance radio equipment, towers, fibre links, backup power and continuing maintenance.
Nigeria is pursuing another spectrum auction as data traffic places growing pressure on existing infrastructure. The Nigerian Communications Commission is preparing to offer two blocks of 100 megahertz in the 3.5 gigahertz band for 5G services.
The need for investment is clear. Nigerian data consumption reached 1.66 million terabytes in July 2026, nearly 47 per cent above the 1.13 million terabytes recorded a year earlier.
NCC’s Aminu Maida said the investment challenge extended beyond expanding coverage to improving capacity and network performance nationwide.
His observation reflects the shift from connecting new locations to providing sufficient capacity and service quality in places already covered. Increasing traffic requires denser networks, upgraded equipment and dependable fibre backhaul, even where operators are not entering new geographical markets.
South Africa demonstrates the continuing expenditure required after spectrum has been secured. Vodacom’s Western Cape operation plans to invest more than R500 million, approximately US$30 million, during the current financial year.
Airtel Africa offers a continental illustration of the same capital intensity. Its capital expenditure increased 31.9 per cent to US$884 million in the year to March 2026 as it deployed more than 3,250 sites and expanded fibre by approximately 3,200 kilometres to 81,900 kilometres.
The scale of investment is strengthening the argument for infrastructure sharing. Building separate towers, fibre routes, power systems and data facilities for each operator can consume capital without necessarily improving the customer experience proportionately.
MTN Group senior vice-president Ebenezer Asante has argued that operators should share critical digital infrastructure instead of repeatedly constructing parallel systems.
“That layer of digital infrastructure is not one that requires competition. It’s one that requires shared ownership,” he said.
Sharing passive infrastructure can lower deployment costs and release capital for service innovation, additional coverage and network quality. It can also reduce environmental disruption and the cost of powering duplicated sites.
However, poorly designed sharing arrangements can create new monopolies. Regulators must ensure open access, transparent pricing, service standards and fair allocation of capacity. Competition should remain strongest at the retail and service layers, even where physical infrastructure is jointly used.
Financing Africa’s 5G transition will therefore require more than larger spectrum auctions. Governments must balance licence revenue against operators’ ability to invest after acquisition. Regulators must enforce national rollout while recognising the weaker economics of rural deployment. Operators must share infrastructure where duplication destroys value, but preserve competition where it benefits consumers.
The continent’s emerging models from Ghana’s hybrid structure to Nigeria’s auctions and South Africa’s network modernisation are attempts to solve the same problem: how to finance advanced connectivity in markets where demand is expanding rapidly but purchasing power remains constrained.
The winning model will not be the one that raises the most money upfront. It will be the one that converts spectrum into affordable, reliable capacity across the widest possible geography. Africa’s 5G future ultimately depends less on licence awards than on whether financing structures can turn those awards into functioning networks that consumers and businesses can use.
