There are fresh indications that a good number of Visafone staff are to be retrained so they have the requisite skills for engaging the new 4G LTE technology.

Visafone, the leading CDMA Operator in Nigeria has been acquired by telecommunication giants, MTN Nigeria, with the acquisition expected to provide the GSM giant the robust voice and data platform of Visafone and cater for booming internet population of Nigeria. 

It was gathered that selected staff of Visafone are likely to commence the retraining immediately ahead of the launch of the new data service.

The aggressive launch of 4G LTE services by the merged entity of MTN and Visafone is also expected to drive the broadband penetration in the country from under 10% now to the targeted 30% by 2018 as per the national broadband plan of the Federal Government and help meet the national broadband plan targets.

The 4G LTE technology is particularly good for the country and economy because it will create a conducive platform for enhanced product/service innovation which will ultimately lead to the creation of even new jobs.

This is perhaps the most seamless and successful acquisition in Nigerian telecommunication industry.

Market watchers have commended the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and have said it be encouraged for supporting this initiative, which is widely applauded as a major telecom industry landmark deal.

MTN is now expected to massively and aggressively leverage the CDMA pedigree of Visafone to roll out premium products that portends very good business opportunity for the carrier and Nigerians.

This is expected to ensure a high quality data services and improve mobile broadband experience for subscribers of Visafone and MTN. 

The acquisition is expected to provide the much-needed relief to the booming Internet economy by making available quality mobile broadband services adopting the state of the art 4G LTE technologies during the year.

With about 150 million mobile subscribers and about 97 million Internet users Nigeria ranks among the fastest growing countries in terms of mobile subscribers and Internet penetration. However, vast majority of the 97 million Internet users today are experiencing narrow band Internet at 2G/3G speeds.

At present majority of data users use 2G/3G technologies and it is estimated that LTE users will constitute 80% of all data users by 2019.

Availability of 4G LTE mobile broadband services on a national scale starting 2016 is expected to act as a catalyst to many sectors of the economy like the booming e-Commerce, banking Insurance and financial services, Software and IT enabled services etc., and is likely to trigger widening of the revenue base of the federal government into non-oil sectors.

The market consolidation by the acquisition of the CDMA operator Visafone by the GSM operator MTN is the first in the history of telecom industry in Nigeria and is commendable in the larger interest of the country and the economy.