MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest mobile operator by subscriptions, has installed more than 100 5G base stations ahead of a commercial rollout of the high speed service from the end of this month.

Leadership Nigeria reports that the base stations were deployed in partnership with Chinese equipment vendor Huawei. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, MTN and newcomer Mafab Communications each bid USD273.6 million for 100MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum in the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC’s) auction held in December last year.

Following the conclusion of the assignment stage, MTN selected spectrum in the 3500MHz-3600MHz band for an additional USD15.9 million and was officially handed its licence after meeting the payment deadline earlier this year.

In line with the terms and conditions of the concessions, the companies are expected to commence the rollout of their 5G networks from 24 August.