9mobile and MTN Lead Network Outages in May

Major service interruptions in Nigeria’s telecommunications networks increased dramatically in May 2025 as system failures, fibre cuts, and power outages drove network outages to their highest level of the year. The worst-hit operators were MTN Nigeria and 9mobile, according to the data gathered by Uptime, a network monitoring software. This raises questions over the calibre of telecom services in the biggest mobile market in Africa.

9mobile reported 31 significant outages in many states between January 1 and May 19, 2025, whereas MTN Nigeria recorded 25. Road construction or vandalism-related fiber cuts were found to be responsible for almost 70% of these events. Millions of subscribers were left offline as a result of the ensuing outage, which had a significant impact on essential services. Even while all of the major mobile network operators (MNOs) had outages, Airtel had 13 and Globacom had 20, 9mobile not only had the most incidents but also the longest service restoration timeframes.

Critical services including SMS, phone calls, mobile broadband, and USSD are frequently completely shut down as a result of these significant disruptions, sometimes for hours at a time. Less serious events happen more often, yet depending on their extent, they might still lower service quality. Yahaya Ibrahim, MTN Nigeria’s Chief Technical Officer, revealed in a previous interview with TechCabal that the network deals with up to 30 of these occurrences per day.

If the fibre cut has not occurred on a key line, operators usually redirect traffic when outages occur before sending engineers to locate and resolve the problem. However, this year has seen an increase in the frequency of large fibre route cuts, which were previously uncommon.

Nigeria experiences longer and more frequent network outages than many of its African counterparts, mostly as a result of regulatory obstacles, power instability, and infrastructure deficiencies. On the other hand, nations with more robust infrastructure and quicker incident response procedures, such as South Africa and Kenya, have more resilient networks. For instance, businesses should anticipate emergency WiFi assistance response times of 35 to 80 minutes in urban regions like Johannesburg and Pretoria, while response times of 80 to 240 minutes may be lengthier in rural areas.

The increasing frequency of outages in Nigeria has a direct effect on telecom customers’ company operations and customer experience. Extended outages affect more than just missed calls in a digital economy that depends more and more on reliable connectivity. They also interfere with banking, corporate communications, logistics, emergency services, and access to fundamental information. According to Uptime, grid instability, vandalism, and fiber cuts—often brought on by construction—were the main causes of these disruptions.

For example, 9mobile experienced one of its worst outages on May 14 when power problems severely damaged its network throughout Lagos, impacting several local governments, including Agege, Eti-Osa, and Apapa. Over eight hours passed during the outage. A few days prior, 9mobile’s data services in the FCT, Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, and other northern states were interrupted for about three hours by a fibre cut.

In another extreme instance, following the delivery of 7,000 litres of diesel to the impacted base stations, a power outage that started on April 29 in portions of Kebbi and Sokoto wasn’t fixed until May 14—more than 15 days later.

Although technical difficulties were encountered by all operators, the speed at which these problems were resolved varied significantly. According to resolution hours monitored by Uptime, MTN typically addressed incidents faster than its counterparts, even with its high outage count. For instance, according to the Uptime report, a May 11 fibre outage in Bayelsa and Rivers that impacted phone, internet, and SMS services was resolved in a little more than an hour. MTN’s longest turnaround time was three hours and twelve minutes for a fibre cut incident that affected twelve settlements in Benue. 

On the other hand, 9mobile’s failures, particularly those that affected the power supply, tended to persist far longer. For example, the May 14 power outage in Lagos lasted more than eight hours, indicating a slower reaction to crises and a poorer redundancy in the infrastructure.

MTN encountered non-technical difficulties as well. Access to 155 more linked locations was cut off in April when 16 MTN installations were sealed by the Kogi State government’s Utility Infrastructure Management and Compliance Agency (KUIMCA). Negotiations were necessary to end this nearly 23-day deadlock in early May, underscoring the political and regulatory concerns that telecoms confront in addition to technical ones.

MTN Nigeria is increasing its infrastructure investments in response to the growing service issues. With ₦200 billion already invested in the first quarter alone, the business has pledged ₦800 billion for network improvements in 2025, a 159% increase over the same period last year.

The investment seeks to “translate this into enhanced client experience, reduced delays, faster internet connectivity speeds, and wider network reach,” according to a statement provided to TechCabal by Ugonwa Nwoye, Chief Customer and Experience Officer at MTN Nigeria.

Using motorbikes to assist engineers in navigating congested areas like Lagos is one aspect of this method that enables them to arrive at incident sites faster. Daily fibre cable inspections are also conducted by these motorcycles, allowing for the early identification and fixing of problems before they become serious enough to cause service interruptions.

Broader questions concerning the dependability of telecom services are brought up by the increase in outages and inconsistent restoration times. Over 140 million Nigerians depend on mobile networks to access the internet, making telecom infrastructure a vital part of everyday life for many. It powers healthcare, education, entertainment, and financial services. Trust in service providers rapidly declines when networks malfunction.

The performance of 9mobile is very worrisome. The operator is under tremendous pressure to restore its reputation because of its declining subscriber base, which fell from over 20 million in 2015 to 2.96 million as of March 2025. Prolonged service restoration and frequent interruptions only serve to increase consumer discontent and obstruct any possible recovery.

The robustness and dependability of Nigeria’s telecom infrastructure becomes even more important as the country works to increase broadband access and achieve its goals for digital inclusion. The success of these new entrants is largely dependent on the durability of the underlying networks offered by the incumbent MNOs, even if the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has licensed more than 40 Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) in an effort to increase competition, reduce prices, and promote innovation.