MTN Nigeria Communications Plc is experiencing growing customer dissatisfaction over recurring service downtime on its newly launched FibreX fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband network.
According to operational tracking by MoneyCentral, FibreX subscribers in Lagos suffered service disruptions on 23 out of 31 days in July 2026, characterized by multiple daily outages that interrupted high-speed fiber-optic connectivity for residential and enterprise users across key urban centers.
The reliability challenges coincide with MTN’s aggressive expansion in Nigeria’s fixed broadband sector. MTN currently controls roughly 90% of the nation’s active fiber backbone infrastructure, complementing its FiberX FTTH offerings with 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) to capture high-ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) home and office data demand.
Infrastructure Vulnerabilities and Sector Context
The frequent downtime highlights persistent operational hurdles in Nigeria’s fixed-line infrastructure market:
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Fiber Cut Vulnerabilities: Third-party road construction, vandalism, and municipal infrastructure works frequently damage buried terrestrial fiber-optic cables, leading to physical network breaks that require manual splicing and restoration.
MTN Nigeria CEO Karl Toriola revealed that Nigeria records more daily fibre optic cable cuts than Saudi Arabia sees in an entire year. He noted that uncoordinated road construction, vandalism, and extortion syndicates drive severe network disruptions and degrade service quality.
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Customer Care Friction: Automated SMS alerts dispatched to affected users have done little to soothe customer frustration, particularly among enterprise and remote-work subscribers who pay premium rates (up to ₦200,000 monthly) for guaranteed uptime.
The messages seen by MoneyCentral that MTN Nigeria sent to its subscribers read: “Dear FiberX Customer, we are aware of a service disruption affecting your FiberX connection. Our team is actively working to restore it as quickly as possible. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience you might be experiencing. We will send you a follow-up message as soon as service is restored. Thank you for your understanding.”
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Strategic Fixed-Line Push: MTN’s push into uncapped, speed-tiered fiber pricing aims to build predictable recurring revenue streams beyond traditional mobile voice and data, competing directly with established Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Spectranet, IPNX, and FiberOne.
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