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Airtel Nigeria has unveiled a sturdy update on a spread of network, infrastructure and technology advancements that position the corporate on the forefront of quality of service leadership in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry. Announced at its first media roundtable of 2026, the updates reflect sustained investments revamped the past 12 to 24 months and signal an accelerated push to remain ahead of surging data demand in a rapidly digitising economy.
Speaking to senior editors and industry correspondents, Airtel Nigeria Chief Executive Officer, Dinesh Balsingh, said the corporate’s strategy is anchored on deliberate scale, depth and resilience.
“Over the last two years, now we have invested with discipline and clarity to strengthen our network nationwide. Those investments are actually translating into measurable improvements in performance, customer experience and reach, including in underserved and hard to achieve communities,” he said. “In 2026, we’re accelerating these upgrades because Nigeria’s data appetite is growing, and leadership on this industry will belong to those that plan ahead.”
At the core of Airtel Nigeria’s quality of service drive is the rapid expansion of its network footprint. Since December 2023, the corporate has increased the variety of network sites by 15.5%, adding 2,242 recent sites and bringing its total to just about 16,711 nationwide. Further deployments are planned in 2026 to strengthen coverage, capability and resilience across urban and rural locations.
Network capability upgrades have also reached a big scale. In 2025, Airtel accomplished capability enhancements on 30% of its sites, covering over 5032 sites nationwide. Today, 99% of Airtel Nigeria’s sites deliver high-speed 4G mobile broadband, establishing the operator as a full nationwide 4G network. This 12 months, capability upgrades are being prolonged to more sites to sustain performance as data usage continues to rise.
According to Chief Technology Officer, Harmanpreet Singh Dhillon, spectrum depth and optimisation remain critical to network quality. “We have increased our 4G spectrum by 10MHz and we’re actively optimising our holdings. These actions allow us to support higher data throughput, higher speeds and more consistent service, especially in high-traffic areas,” he said.
Airtel Nigeria can also be accelerating its 5G rollout. Over the last three months, the corporate has greater than doubled the variety of energetic 5G sites. The accelerated 5G upgrade happening now will connect the highest 20 Nigerian cities to high-speed 5G networks, with a big part of Airtel’s network in these cities becoming 5G-enabled in the approaching 12 months.
Beyond terrestrial infrastructure, Airtel is extending connectivity through space-based solutions. The company has established and signed partnerships with satellite providers OneWeb and Starlink, enabling enterprise-grade connectivity for businesses in distant locations, hard-to-reach areas and operational outposts. Recently, Airtel announced Nigeria’s first Direct-to-Cell partnership with Starlink, a breakthrough that may allow customers to stay connected while travelling through deep distant areas and enable small rural communities to access Airtel’s digital and fintech services.
The backbone supporting these services continues to expand. Airtel Nigeria has built an in depth fibre footprint across just about all states, developed through years of sustained deployment. Following the announcement to double capital expenditure last 12 months, the corporate committed to expanding its fibre network by 25%, and intensive rollout activity is ongoing across cities and states. Airtel has also confirmed plans to increase its fibre footprint even further, each inside major cities and between states.
A pivotal national milestone can also be on the horizon. Nigeria currently relies on a single web submarine cable landing and breakout point in Lagos. Airtel Nigeria has announced that it would launch a second web breakout from the South of Nigeria, leveraging the 2Africa submarine cable. In partnership with 2Africa, Airtel will shortly begin carrying web breakout traffic from Kwa Ibo in Akwa Ibom State.
“This will create a faster and alternative path for big parts of the North and South, and improve resilience for the complete ecosystem. Airtel is proud to take the lead in making this occur,” Balsingh said.
Underpinning these advances is a sturdy IT and cloud backbone. Airtel Nigeria operates an enterprise-grade private cloud with hundreds of virtual machines, managing massive storage and compute power across locations. The infrastructure includes large GPU clusters, supporting AI-driven applications equivalent to fraud detection, intelligent network self-healing and advanced customer analytics. The company recently announced the upcoming launch of its hyperscaler-ready 38 megawatt data centre in Eko Atlantic. This is designed for Nigeria’s next phase of digital growth, powered by AI.
From a customer access perspective, Airtel Nigeria maintains one in every of the most important retail footprints within the country. Its services and products can be found in over 200,000 outlets nationwide, supported by greater than 4,000 exclusive shops across all local government areas and 250 flagship stores.
Balsingh added that, “Quality of service today is about resilience, redundancy and intelligence, and that’s what Airtel is delivering. From fibre to cloud to satellite-enabled connectivity, we’re constructing a platform that enables Nigerian businesses to scale with confidence, no matter location.”
He reaffirmed Airtel Nigeria’s long-term commitment to the country. “Our focus is consistent investment, disciplined execution and deep confidence in Nigeria’s future,” he said.
Aside from Singh Dhillon, other members of the Airtel Nigeria leadership readily available with material expertise on the roundtable included Director, Airtel Business, Ogo Ofomata; Director, Marketing, Ismail Adeshina; Director, Information Technology, Kemi Ariyo; and Director, Corporate Communications and CSR, Femi Adeniran.
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