MTN Nigeria said Sunday it has begun selling bundled broadband packages that pair data plans with compatible routers, priced from 9,000 naira, as the country’s dominant telecom operator moves to widen internet access in a market that has fallen short of the government’s own broadband targets.

The new offerings include a 30-gigabyte data bundle paired with a 4G standard router for 9,000 naira, a 60-gigabyte bundle with a 4G premium router for 14,500 naira, and an unlimited broadband plan bundled with a 5G router for 40,000 naira. MTN said the packages build on its existing Fixed Wireless Access portfolio, which uses the company’s 4G and 5G networks to deliver internet service to homes and small businesses, and are available at MTN stores, authorized sales partners and accredited device partners nationwide.

Nigeria’s broadband penetration climbed to 55.67% in April, up from 48.81% a year earlier, according to Nigerian Communications Commission data, but the country still trails the 70% penetration target the government set for the end of 2025 under its National Broadband Plan. The country reached just over 50% by that deadline, prompting telecom operators and industry groups to press regulators for a revised framework rather than a renewed target. Fixed-line broadband remains especially underdeveloped: the NCC has put the number of active fiber-to-the-home subscriptions nationwide at roughly 265,000, a figure well below the African average, leaving mobile-network-based options such as MTN’s router bundles as the primary route to broadband for most households.

The federal government’s Project BRIDGE initiative aims to lay about 90,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable to improve connectivity across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas, part of a broader push the NCC has framed as essential to the country’s ambition of building a $1 trillion economy. MTN competes for broadband customers with rivals including Airtel Nigeria, Globacom and 9mobile, though NCC figures show MTN holding the largest share of the country’s mobile subscriber base by a wide margin.

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MTN Nigeria’s chief broadband officer, Egerton Idehen, said the bundled packages were designed to make broadband more affordable for households, students and remote workers. “Broadband has become an essential service for modern living, enabling people to work, learn, create, and stay connected,” Idehen said, adding that the company aims to accelerate broadband adoption while delivering value to customers.

MTN remains Nigeria’s largest mobile operator, with more than 96 million active subscribers as of April, over half of the country’s total mobile subscriptions, according to NCC figures. The telecom sector contributed 9.19% of Nigeria’s gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2026, a scale that gives MTN’s expansion into broadband bundles outsized weight in the government’s push for wider internet access.

Persistent infrastructure damage remains one of the biggest obstacles to that expansion. MTN Nigeria alone recorded 9,218 fiber-optic cable cuts in 2025, generating 1.6 million customer complaints, according to industry data cited in Nigerian media. Nationally, operators logged tens of thousands of fiber cuts and equipment theft incidents last year, with the NCC attributing roughly 70% of the damage to road construction crews working without knowledge of underground cable routes and the remainder to vandalism and theft of copper and cabling for resale as scrap metal.

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The rollout also comes weeks after MTN’s group chief executive, Karl Toriola, drew criticism from subscribers and industry observers for saying that truly unlimited mobile data plans do not exist anywhere in the world. The remark reignited complaints from Nigerian customers who say their data allowances deplete faster than advertised, adding a layer of public skepticism to a company now marketing a broadband plan billed as unlimited.

Tony Emoekpere, president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, has argued that closing the country’s broadband gap requires execution rather than new promises, saying the industry’s central problem has been implementation rather than ambition. “Every serious digital economy operates with a clear broadband strategy,” he has said. “Our challenge has been execution.” The NCC has said it wants broadband coverage extended to 80% of Nigeria’s population by the end of 2027, and has separately pushed for accelerated fiber-to-the-home deployment to support that goal.

Whether MTN’s new bundles meaningfully narrow the country’s broadband gap will depend in part on factors outside the company’s marketing, including the pace of fiber repairs, the rollout of Project BRIDGE, and the government’s still-unfinished successor to the National Broadband Plan.

The Eastern Updates