NCC reveals Inactive telephone lines increase to 67m in June

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says inactive lines in the country’s telecommunications industry have increased from 65,186,763 in May to 67,331,498 in June 2016.

This is contained in the “Monthly Subscriber Data’’ report made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday.

The report indicated that there were an additional 2,144,735 inactive numbers within the period, making the unused lines increase to 67,331,498 in June.

It showed that of the 217,150,404 connected lines, only 149,818,906 numbers were active.

The report stated that of the 67,331,498 inactive numbers, the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks had a share of 63,934,119.

“The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA mobile) operators had a share of 3,210,489; while the Fixed Wired/Wireless networks had a total of 182,662 unused telecommunications lines.

“Moreso of the 149,818,906 active lines, the GSM networks had 149,179,083 numbers, adding a total of 990,040 lines to their May number of 148,189,043 active lines.

“The CDMA operators had 454,092 active lines, as their active numbers reduced by 33,049 lines, from the May result of 487,141 active numbers.

“The Fixed/Wireless networks had a share of 170,539 of the active lines, reducing their May 2016 record of 171,974 by 1,435 lines in June,’’ it said.

In addition, the report said that the teledensity of Nigeria’s telecommunications industry also climbed to 107.01 percent in June, compared to 106.32 percent in May 2016.

It said that the teledensity measured the percentage of a country’s population with access to telecommunications services as determined by the subscriber base.

“Nigeria’s teledensity is currently calculated by the NCC on a population of 140 million people.

“The data showed that some subscribers purchased SIM cards, but dumped them after using them for some time,’’ the report said. 

[NAN]