Dinesh Balsingh, managing director and chief executive officer, Airtel Nigeria, has identified data demands and network connectivity access as two of the critical areas in which the organisation is actively innovating to further improve customer satisfaction.

Mr Balsingh made this revelation at an exclusive roundtable with senior media executives in Lagos. The event, which was held at Radisson Hotel Ikeja, brought together business editors, brands and consumer editors, ICT editors, and capital market editors from legacy print and the digital press for an elaborate discussion on the company’s quality of service innovations.

The special roundtable provided a valuable opportunity for journalists to engage directly with Airtel Nigeria’s leadership to gain deeper insights into the strategies deployed by the organisation to address Nigeria’s growing telecom and technology ecosystem.

During the conversations, Mr Balsingh noted the exponential explosion of data usage across Nigerian cities, particularly Lagos, as rapid urbanisation, digitisation, and mobile-first lifestyles continue to drive bandwidth consumption at unprecedented rates.

“Cities like Lagos are growing at lightning speed—more people, more businesses, more devices. At Airtel, we recognise that data is the new oxygen.

That’s why we’re investing heavily in 5G and fibre to build a smart, scalable network that can carry the weight of Nigeria’s digital future. This isn’t just about faster internet; it’s about enabling education, healthcare, commerce, and opportunity through reliable, high-capacity connectivity,” he said.

The event spotlighted several other advancements such as the Airtel Business Network as a Service (NaaS) solution to boost Nigerian enterprise; collaborations with Starlink and OneWeb to deepen data coverage in remote areas; self-service customer experience products; AI-enabled user data and privacy protections; and the ongoing cashback programmes offered on the Smartcash mobile app.

Other programmes highlighted by Mr Balsingh and his team include Airtel’s ground-breaking AI-powered Spam Alert Service, which currently flags about 30 million spam SMS messages monthly; the NXtra Data Centre, which is set to go live in 2026 as the largest data centre in Nigeria; and the scale of education support projects like the N1 billion investment in the federal government’s Three Million Technical Talents (3MTT) initiative, Adopt-a-School, and the Reimagine Education programme which currently benefits over 1.5 million Nigerian learners of which over 880,000 are public elementary school pupils across the 1450 Airtel/UNICEF schools nationwide.

“Airtel Nigeria is responding with cutting-edge solutions to power the future of digital connectivity in urban areas as well as hard-to-reach areas across the country,” Balsingh said.

With the introduction of 5G-ready technologies and aggressive fibre rollout in major urban areas, he stated, Airtel is ensuring that Nigerians are not left behind in the global digital economy, stating that Airtel’s evolving network infrastructure is designed to serve the needs of modern consumers who demand high-speed, uninterrupted access to online services

This roundtable forms part of Airtel Nigeria’s broader commitment to innovation, customer focus, and thought leadership within the telecom industry. As Nigeria continues to embrace digital transformation, Airtel remains focused on delivering multilayered solutions that match the speed and ambition of Nigerians.

Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has tightened up the corporate governance guidelines for telecommunications (telcos) operators to enhance transparency, internal controls, and risk management across the industry.

Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, who dropped hint at the inauguration of the 2025 Guidelines on Corporate Governance in Lagos, said that the new framework is designed to ensure long-term sustainability for telcos’ businesses, networks, as well as instill investor confidence.

Under the new rules, telecommunications licensees must implement balanced board structures, enhance transparency, and establish more stringent internal control systems.

Board members are expected to include executive, non-executive, and independent directors with demonstrated expertise in information and communication technology (ICT) and cybersecurity.

He stressed further that NCC now formally recognises regulatory officers within licensees’ operations as key contacts for compliance monitoring.

“Corporate governance is no longer a soft requirement. It is now strategically imperative, especially in a sector that is central to Nigeria’s digital future and exposed to cybersecurity threats, climate risks, energy shocks, and rising consumer expectations.

“A major highlight of the new framework is the emphasis on internal audits and risk control,” Maida said.

With the new guidelines, operators are expected to conduct structured risk assessments and empower internal audit functions to ensure oversight.

“The guidelines mandate submission of mid-year and annual compliance reports, which must be certified by the board of directors.

“Our goal is simple, to ensure that telcos’ boards and management are properly structured to provide reliable services, protect infrastructure, and respond to the dynamic challenges of the industry,” Maida maintained.

He noted that companies with robust governance frameworks consistently outperformed others in areas of service delivery, financial management, and regulatory compliance.

He pointed out that the stiffer measures may initially disrupt some operators, but that the long-term benefits would outweigh any temporary challenges.

“With over 200 million active subscriptions, the telecoms sector is now considered essential to Nigeria’s economy, supporting digital infrastructure across finance, education, healthcare, and government services,” the NCC boss said.

He further noted that the guidelines will be rolled out in phases, depending on the category of licence held, stressing that enforcement would be rigorous.

“Operators must view this not as a regulatory burden but as a blueprint for long-term value creation.

WhatsApp has unveiled new safety features to help users detect and avoid scams across group and individual chats, revealing that it banned more than 6.8 million accounts tied to criminal scam centres targeting people globally.

The Meta-owned messaging platform said the tools are designed to provide users with more context before they engage, particularly when they are added to unfamiliar groups or begin conversations with people who are not in their contacts.

It also disclosed that it worked with OpenAI in a coordinated enforcement action that disrupted a fraud network traced to Cambodia.

“In the first six months of this year, as part of our ongoing proactive work to protect people from scams, WhatsApp detected and banned over 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centres,” the company said.

For group chats, the app will now display a safety overview when someone outside a user’s contacts adds them to a group they do not recognise.

The overview shows whether the person who added them is in their contacts, whether other members are known to them, and offers tips to stay safe. If users want more context, they can open the chat; otherwise, notifications from the group will remain muted until they choose to stay.

This, WhatsApp said, is aimed at curbing surprise additions to large or malicious groups and preventing the spread of fraudulent links through mass invitations.

On individual chats, scammers often begin conversations elsewhere online before moving targets to private messaging.

To counter this, WhatsApp is testing ways to provide more context when a user starts a chat with someone who is not in their address book, giving people time to assess the legitimacy of the contact before responding.

The collaboration with OpenAI revealed that fraudsters had been using ChatGPT to craft initial outreach messages that lured victims into WhatsApp chats before directing them to other platforms such as Telegram to finalise the scam.

The schemes ranged from fake earnings tasks and pyramid-style rent-a-scooter offers to cryptocurrency investment ruses. In many cases, fraudsters built trust by showing fabricated earnings before pressuring victims to transfer funds into crypto accounts, following a familiar pattern of escalating from low-risk tasks to real financial transactions.

WhatsApp urged users to take time to review messages before responding, question any request that pressures them to act quickly, and verify the identity of anyone claiming to be a friend or family member through another channel.

The company said the new contextual prompts are meant to make spotting red flags easier and reinforce safe behaviour.

The tools are being rolled out gradually as tests continue, with adjustments expected based on user feedback and evolving scam tactics.