Case Study

Climate-friendly network and community power to close the digital divide

Background

As part of its transformation agenda, the Nigerian government committed to accelerating economic growth in rural areas, where citizens comprise 50% of the country’s population. Notionally less than 30% of energy is supplied via grid power. MTN Nigeria set itself a target to increase rural mobile communication coverage and reduce dependency on diesel by over 50% by 2020. MTN Nigeria recognised that it could deepen its service offering while helping the government realise its objectives.

Solution

MTN undertook to provide telecommunication access to 850 villages across Nigeria. Phase 1 is complete: 280 base transceiver sites provide telecommunication services to 350 villages. MTN is implementing network sites using an architecture methodology called “fully meshed satellite networks” which reduces the need to “hop” across connection points or networks at the last mile, thereby reducing communication costs and improving the quality of voice calls. Solar and hybrid solutions displaced the traditional use of diesel to provide power to both sites and villages.