A recent report by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has revealed that urban internet users in Nigeria continue to enjoy significantly faster connectivity than their rural counterparts, even as overall network performance shows modest improvements.
The study analysed 377,135 network tests using geospatial mapping, finding that average urban download speeds reach 20.5 Mbps, compared with just 11 Mbps in rural areas, a gap of nearly 40 percent. Upload speeds also lag in rural communities, averaging 6.1 Mbps, against 10.5 Mbps in cities. While rural speeds have increased from 8.5 Mbps earlier this year, higher latency in these areas continues to affect real-time applications like voice and video calls.
The NCC noted that network usage is highly concentrated in urban centres. “Urban areas account for just 5.2 percent of Nigeria’s landmass but 96.7 percent of total network activity”, the report said, while rural communities covering over 93 percent of the country experience sparser use and slower speeds.
The regulator also highlighted that the choice of service provider can be as important as location. Highways such as the Lagos–Abuja corridor have emerged as “digital corridors”, where towns along these routes enjoy stronger connectivity compared to more remote villages.
According to the report, 4G LTE remains Nigeria’s broadband backbone, delivering 10–20 Mbps in rural areas, while 5G networks, where available, offer speeds of up to 220 Mbps but are largely limited to dense urban centres.
The NCC concluded that bridging the urban-rural digital divide will require targeted rural infrastructure upgrades, improved upload capacity, and stronger quality-of-service standards to support e-government, digital education, and remote work. “Improving network quality outside cities is key to ensuring all Nigerians benefit from digital services”, the regulator said.
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