Airtel Nigeria has unveiled a broad update on network, infrastructure and technology investments that it says place the company at the forefront of quality of service leadership in Nigeria’s telecommunications industry. Speaking at a roundtable with senior editors and industry correspondents, the Chief Executive Officer, Dinesh Balsingh, said Airtel’s strategy is built on scale, depth and resilience, noting that sustained investments over the past two years are now delivering measurable improvements in performance, customer experience and nationwide reach, including underserved communities.
At the heart of this drive is a significant expansion of Airtel’s network footprint and capacity. Since December 2023, the operator has grown its network sites by 15.5 percent, adding 2,242 new locations to reach nearly 16,711 sites nationwide, with further rollouts planned in 2026 across urban and rural areas. In 2025 alone, Airtel completed capacity upgrades on 30 percent of its sites, covering over 5,000 locations, while 99 percent of its network now delivers high speed 4G services, effectively positioning Airtel as a full nationwide 4G operator.
The company is also accelerating its 5G and advanced connectivity ambitions. Over the past three months, Airtel has more than doubled its active 5G sites, with plans to connect the top 20 Nigerian cities to high speed 5G networks over the coming year. Beyond terrestrial infrastructure, Airtel has partnered with satellite providers OneWeb and Starlink, including Nigeria’s first Direct to Cell agreement with Starlink, to extend enterprise grade connectivity to remote locations and rural communities.
These efforts are supported by an expanding fibre backbone across almost all states and plans to launch a second internet breakout point from the South via the 2Africa submarine cable, starting from Akwa Ibom State, to improve national resilience.
Underpinning Airtel’s network expansion is a strong IT and cloud ecosystem designed for Nigeria’s next phase of digital growth. The company operates a large private cloud with extensive virtual machines, storage and GPU clusters that power AI driven services such as fraud detection, intelligent network self healing and advanced analytics.
Airtel has also announced plans to launch a 38 megawatt hyperscaler ready data centre in Eko Atlantic, while maintaining one of the country’s largest retail footprints with over 200,000 outlets, 4,000 exclusive shops and 250 flagship stores nationwide, reinforcing its long term commitment to Nigeria’s digital future.