No fewer than 45. 5 million telephone lines are currently inactive in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission has said.

According to the industry regulator in its latest industry’s subscriber data for first quarter ending April 30, 2013, while the total number of connected telephone lines in the country stood at 16.8 million, only 119.3 million were active, leaving about 45.5 million inactive.

The inactive lines, comprises phone lines from the Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM, networks; the Code Division Multiple Access networks and fixed line operators.

According to the latest data, active telephone subscriptions in Nigeria increased from 113.1 million to reach 114.4 million, 116.6 million, 117.2 million and 119.3 million in January, February, March and April respectively.

The total connected telephone lines in the country now stand at 164.8 million at the end of April, 2013, having increased from 161.9 million, 159.8 million and 154.5 million in January, February and March respectively in the first quarter.

The additional 6.2 million telephone lines which were added in the quarter pushed the current total active mobile subscriptions in the country up from 113.1 million at the end of December, 2012 to 119.3 million at the end of April, this year.

The NCC latest data showed that overall; the industry grew its subscriber base by 7.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, as over 6.2 million additional telephone lines were recorded on various mobile networks during the period.

The NCC data has revealed an increase from teledensity from 80.85 in December 2012 to 81.78, January; 83.29 per cent in February; 83.77 per cent in March and 85.25 per cent at the end of April, in the first quarter. Teledensity is the percentage of connected lines in relation to the population at a given period of time and its growth is proportional to the growth in subscriber base.

Highlights of the subscriber data also revealed that telecoms firms continue to spend on network expansion to be able to accommodate more subscribers on their networks.

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