For close to twenty years, 3G was the network that pulled Nigeria online. It powered the BlackBerry years, put BBM in everyone’s thumbs, and for millions of people it was the first time the internet lived anywhere but a cybercafé. The early Nigerian fintechs, online stores, and media platforms all got built on those rails.
That network is now the first one marked to die.
At MTN Group’s Capital Markets Day on June 11, Selorm Adadevoh, the group’s chief commercial, strategy and transformation officer, said the company’s attention has shifted to switching off 3G. The plan is to retire some 3G networks across its markets between now and 2030, then hand the freed-up spectrum and tower space to 4G and 5G. There’s no formal timeline for Nigeria yet. The direction of travel is set, though.
Here’s the part that catches people off guard. If you had to bet on which old network dies first, you’d probably say 2G. It’s older, clunkier, the one we picture with brick phones and text-only handsets. You’d be wrong. 2G is staying. 3G is the one on the chopping block.
The Network That Put Nigeria Online
The story starts in 2006, when a company called Starcomms switched on Nigeria’s first 3G service, built for laptop data cards and USB modems. Starcomms didn’t survive the GSM wars and folded by 2012, but the door was already open. In March 2007, the NCC auctioned four 3G licences to MTN, Celtel (now Airtel), Globacom, and Alheri, the operator that eventually became 9mobile. Each paid $150 million, which handed the government $600 million and set off a building race across the country.
Then the timing did its thing. 3G arrived right as the global smartphone boom hit. BlackBerry turned into a full cultural moment among Nigerian students and professionals, BBM rewired how people talked, and cheap Android phones brought millions more online. By 2014 and 2015, 3G carried close to half of all active mobile connections in the country. Before it, the internet mostly lived in cybercafés. After it, the internet lived in your pocket.
The Middle Child Nobody Needs Anymore
Fast forward to 2026 and 3G is stuck in an awkward spot. It’s slower and less efficient than 4G and 5G, and it’s costly to keep running for the shrinking group of people still on it. NCC data puts 3G penetration at just 5.32% as of April 2026, the second least-used network in the country. 4G now carries 54.41% of connections. Even 5G, which only launched in August 2022, has already reached 4.34% and is closing in on 3G fast.
MTN has spent years pouring money into 4G instead, and its 4G coverage now reaches past 84.6% of the population. So when Adadevoh describes 3G as carrying “an economic equation that is not very promising,” he’s putting a polite face on a network that costs money to maintain and barely earns its keep. Fewer users, same upkeep, no growth. The math stopped working.
Why the Older 2G Survives
You’d think the oldest network would go first. It doesn’t. 2G still holds a chunky 35.93% of connections, and MTN has been clear that it sees 2G sticking around for years yet. The reason is that 2G quietly runs a lot of things the rest of us forget about. Basic feature phones out in rural areas. Point-of-sale machines. Plain voice and USSD… those *codes people punch in to send money or check a balance with no data at all. A whole layer of cheap, low-power connections between machines.
3G never earned that kind of backstage role. It was a bridge technology, brilliant in its moment, then leapfrogged once 4G showed up. 2G is the floor everything else stands on. 3G was a staircase, useful right up until the building got a lift. That’s why the staircase goes first.
The Case That It’s Too Soon
Not everyone thinks the timing adds up. Olajide Mafolabomi, an executive at Cloud Interactive Media Group, argues 4G isn’t carrying enough of the load yet to safely pull the plug on 3G. His rough benchmark is that operators should get 85 to 90% of connections onto 4G before they switch 3G off. Nigeria’s 4G sits around 54%. By that math, there’s a wide gap between a network in decline and a network ready to be retired, and moving too soon could strand the users still parked on 3G with nowhere good to land.
So the shutdown is coming, just not tomorrow. MTN has signalled the intent and says a few of its markets are technically ready already. Nigeria, with tens of millions of people still split across 2G and 3G, probably won’t be first in line. The 3G era that put the country online won’t end with one switch flipped overnight. It’ll fade market by market, as the people it once carried finally move up to something faster.
