The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced a 20% reduction to the cost of national roaming which will mean subscribers will pay less for inter-network calls.

The rate for national calls has been reduced from NGN4.90 (US$0.0112) to NGN3.90 (US$0.0084) per minute for mobile operators, effective 1 July, according to the NCC's website.

This is the first time in five years that Nigeria will revise its interconnection rate and is contrary to general expectation among subscribers.

New entrant LTE operators will pay NGN4.70, while the international termination rate of NGN24.40 (determined in 2016) remains unchanged.

Umar Garba Danbatta, NCC's Executive Vice President, said the regulator considered operators' opinion as well as the state of competition in Nigeria's telecoms sector and the country's macro-economic environment.

"The process of arriving at a new mobile termination rate has been conducted in a climate of openness and with a view to providing maximum transparency to all parties without compromising the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information," the NCC stated.

Prior to the directive, the NCC commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to carry out a comparative study on interconnection tariffs in Nigeria and globally.

The study revealed that the Nigerian telecoms market has experienced strong growth since the regulator adopted interconnection tariffs in 2009, and then revised the tariffs in 2013.