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September 4, 2025 by Lucas Ajanaku
Two months after Nigeria’s largest mobile network operator (MNO), MTN Nigeria and T2 sealed a roaming deal that would allow the subscribers of the latter leverage the infrastructure of the former to offer services, many subscribers complained yesterday that they are still battling with getting T2 signal back on their devices.
A subscriber who gave his name simply as Bunmi, said the deal is not working as he has not been able to use his T2 number.
“When the announcement was made on July 3, 2025, I was elated because 9mobile (now T2) used to be my favourite number. I got the line during the launch of the 080naija campaign. I was enjoying the line until the company ran into a turbulent storm that affected its fortunes. Service quality nosed-dived but when new investors were announced to bring life into the telco, I was happy,” Bunmi said.
Another female subscriber, Esther Gabriel, said she also got the line as an undergraduate in the University of Lagos. She said she was enjoying the services of the MNO until trouble started that affected its service quality and subsequently, its subscribers’ trust. “I refused to port my 9mobile line because I had this emotional attachment to the youth-centric operator. Then as an art student, I loved the operator’s support for the arts. When I heard about the deal with MTN, I was happy that I will start enjoying my darling line again. But over two months after the announcement, I am still unable to make use of my line,” Esther said.
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But reacting to the development, a source close to the company explained that there are procedures to take to enjoy the service. He said the fact that one has T2 Subscriber Identity Module (SMI) inserted into a mobile device does not make the customer to enjoy the service.
“The active infrastructure sharing (AIS) tips to follow include: For Android users, go to settings, tap network and internet or connections; tap SIM cards or mobile networks; select network operators; turn off auto-select; wait for available networks; select MTN 4G/3G/2G or 62130; then restart the phone. After that, you are good to go,” he added.
A consumer rights group, Association of Telephone, Cable Tv, and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCIS-Nigeria), said some of its members have lodged complaints too about their inability to use their T2 line even after the deal with MTN Nigeria, the largest carrier in the country.
ATCIS-Nigeria President, Hon Sina Bilesanmi, said T2 ought to have embarked on mass enlightenment of customers on what to do. According to him, T2 ought to have disseminated personalised information to all its customers on the network
“Yes, we have received complaints too. From our findings, T2 didn’t do enough education to its customers. “It is their network, they should send text and audio messages in the three major languages spoken in the country (Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba) to their customers educating them on the steps to take to enjoy the roaming deal. The mobile space in the country is like a big elephant with enough meat for all. We want T2 to remain in the industry to deepen competition,” he said.
He said if the customers are adequately informed, T2 will roar back to life because many customers have emotional attachment to the telco.
A sector analyst agreed no less with Hon Bilesanmi. According to him, things are beginning to look good for the telco as the July data released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has shown.
T2 had posted its first gain of the year in July as it added 290,601 new subscribers in the month, spurred largely by the infrastructure sharing deal with MTN Nigeria.
It was the first monthly subscriber gain in nearly a year for the carrier that had experienced steady decline in its customer base over the years due to obsolete network equipment that took toll on its service quality.
For July, T2 also emerged as the only operator out of the four MNOs that gained subscribers in a month that saw MTN, Airtel, and Globacom shed weight.
During the period under review, active mobile subscriptions dipped to 169.1 million from 171.5 million recorded in June this year.
The decline was driven by the losses recorded by the three MNOs but most significantly by Airtel, which lost 2.4 million subscriptions in the month.
The telco’s active subscriptions plunged to 56.5 million in July from 58.9 million it recorded in June.
MTN also lost 106,345 subscribers in the month, which brought its database to 89.1 million in July, while Globacom’s subscriptions declined by 143,701 to 20.7 million.
MTN remained the dominant player in the market with 52.70per cent of the market share, while maintained the second position with 33.42per cent share.
Globacom’s market share stood at 12.26per cent, while 9mobile’s maintained its distant 4th position despite the gains recorded with 1.61per cent of the market share.
With the decline in actively connected lines recorded by the operators, the country’s teledensity, which measures the number of active telephone connections per 100 inhabitants living within an area, also declined to 78.11per cent in July from 79.22per cent recorded in June.
According to NCC, the teledensity is calculated based on a population estimate of 216 million.
It would be recalled that on July 3rd, 9mobile (as it then was known) and MTN Nigeria officially announced a national roaming deal approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). The deal allows customers of 9mobile will be able to access network service anywhere MTN’s network is available across the country.
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