How telecom services are improving Nigerians’ well-being

Telecommunications services are increasingly becoming part of how Nigerians access healthcare, obtain health information, maintain livelihoods and stay connected to essential services, making the resilience of the networks increasingly relevant to public well-being.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has described communications infrastructure as a critical national lifeline underpinning healthcare, banking, education, commerce, security and emergency communications.

The commission’s position comes against the backdrop of persistent damage to the infrastructure supporting telecommunications services.

The NCC said more than 5,000 fibre-cut incidents were recorded in the first six months of 2026 from road construction, excavation and related civil works. A later NCC figure put the total at 5,934, with incidents rising from 1,883 in the first quarter to 4,051 in the second quarter.

The implication extends beyond dropped calls or slower internet speeds.

According to the NCC, damage to fibre infrastructure can result in failed calls, stalled payments, interrupted services and missed opportunities.

In healthcare, where communication between patients, caregivers, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies and emergency responders can be time-sensitive, disruptions can affect access and coordination.

The commission’s e-Health intervention illustrates the growing relationship between connectivity and healthcare. Its Data Sharing and e-Health Platform provides university teaching hospitals with broadband connectivity, servers, network equipment and digital tools to support hospital information management.

The system is designed to enable real-time sharing of information across registration, triage, diagnostics, pharmacy, billing and discharge, while creating a foundation for telemedicine and improving access to patient records.

For patients, the wider significance is that telecommunications increasingly allows some healthcare interactions to happen without a physical visit to a hospital.

MTN, one of Nigeria’s largest mobile operators, provides a window into this changing relationship between connectivity and well-being. As of July 2026, MTN had 100.86 million active subscribers, representing 51.76 per cent of Nigeria’s mobile subscriptions recorded by the NCC.

Through MTN Foundation, the company has also invested directly in healthcare interventions. The Foundation says it has invested more than ₦34.4 billion across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, with more than 32.28 million people reached through its interventions. Its portfolio includes 229 upgraded primary healthcare centres and the Y’ello Doctor programme.

The Y’ello Doctor initiative takes healthcare beyond conventional facilities through mobile medical clinics. In its third phase, MTN Foundation provided six mobile clinics serving Lagos, Anambra, Rivers, Kano, Gombe and Kwara, offering screening, diagnosis, consultation, treatment, prescriptions and referrals. The Foundation said earlier phases had reached more than 646,000 people.

The Foundation’s Market Doctor project similarly seeks to make primary healthcare more accessible to market women and their children, initially in Lagos and Rivers states, allowing healthcare interventions to reach people without significantly disrupting their economic activities.

Digital access is another layer of the connection between telecommunications and health. MTN’s BetaCare platform, for example, provides MTN users with access to licensed doctors for virtual consultations, prescriptions, health records and other healthcare support through mobile, web and USSD channels.

But the effectiveness of such services depends on the underlying network.

The fibre-cut problem therefore becomes a public-interest issue rather than simply an industry problem. The NCC has warned that telecommunications infrastructure and physical infrastructure must coexist, noting that the disruption of digital networks can impose costs on citizens and essential services.

The February 2024 nationwide disruption remains an illustration of that vulnerability. The NCC recalled that fibre damage associated with road construction caused an almost network-wide disruption for one operator, affecting millions of users for several hours and placing additional pressure on other networks.

The Office of the National Security Adviser has also treated fibre infrastructure as critical national infrastructure, while the NCC’s 2026 compensation framework recognises fibre cuts, theft and vandalism among exceptional circumstances that can affect network performance.

As healthcare becomes more digital, the consequences of infrastructure attacks, vandalism and accidental cuts can therefore extend into areas such as remote consultations, access to digital medical information, communication with healthcare providers and the operation of technology-dependent services.

The broader trend is already visible in Nigeria’s connectivity numbers. NCC data shows fixed fibre-to-the-X subscriptions increased from 241,750 in the first quarter of 2026 to 319,735 in the second quarter.

For telecom operators, continued investment in network capacity and resilience is consequently becoming part of the infrastructure required for Nigerians to work, transact, access information and increasingly manage aspects of their health.

For government and other infrastructure stakeholders, protecting fibre routes is becoming equally important.

As NCC Executive Vice Chairman Aminu Maida put it, Nigeria needs both the roads that connect communities and the fibre networks that connect the economy. The same principle increasingly applies to healthcare: the physical health system and the digital networks supporting it are becoming increasingly interconnected.