17 November 2020

MTN Nigeria and 9Mobile have secured approval to trial the embedded Subscriber Identification Modules (e-SIM) service in Nigeria.

The announcement by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) follows its recent confirmation of approval for both companies to trial a national roaming service over a three-month period, scheduled to end on 31 October.

A roaming service trial, a first in Nigeria, is designed to test how subscribers of either telecommunications services provider can access each other’s network service without the need for a SIM card change.

While the trial has not officially been judged successful, the NCC has now confirmed it has granted the two mobile network operators the approval to test five thousand e-SIMs for a year.

NCC executive vice chairman, Umar Danbatta, said this will assess the technical performance of the e-SIM on networks with a view to eventual roll out “if satisfactory”

According to the regulator trialling the technology will eliminate the need for physical SIM card slots on mobile devices in the near future, in line with what the NCC has called its forward-looking regulatory approach to the country’s telecommunications industry and ecosystem.

Last year, e-SIM tech was launched in Sierra Leone through Africell.