MTN Nigeria’s CEO, Karl Toriola, has urged Nigerians to optimise their mobile phone settings to manage data consumption and prevent unnecessary depletion of their data bundles.

Mr Toriola made the plea at the ‘Data on Trial’ experience organised by MTN Nigeria, on Monday in Abuja.

The event was meant to address public concerns about data consumption and pricing in Nigeria.

Mr Toriola said many factors drive MTN data pricing, including the operational costs faced by mobile telecommunication operators.

According to him, operators incur significant expenses on electricity, transportation, and other infrastructure required to maintain telecommunications sites.

He said that MTN spent about N4.05 trillion on power in the preceding year, highlighting the cost pressures affecting telecommunications operations.

“Even within the context of data being perceived as more expensive in Nigeria, the UK is the example I was giving.

“Please understand that in this country, as well as some other African countries, we are providing power and transportation to all our sites. The cost of electricity, for instance, is higher here than in the UK,” he said.

He explained that Nigerian operators deployed similar telecommunications equipment and technologies used in Europe and the U.S., including fourth-generation (4G) and fifth-generation (5G) networks.

The MTN CEO said ‘Data on Trial’ was designed to help consumers understand how phone settings, online activities, and app preferences influence data consumption.

Earlier, the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Communications, Peter Akpatason, described the initiative as an opportunity to improve public understanding of data management and address misconceptions about the telecommunications industry.

Mr Akpatason said the demonstration helped consumers understand how data was consumed and the measures they could take to prevent avoidable depletion.

He said the event also challenged the perception that data prices in Nigeria were higher than in other countries.

The lawmaker acknowledged the significant investment in the telecommunications sector, adding, however, that there was room for more investment to improve service quality.

The general manager, Network Performance and Quality Assurance at MTN Nigeria, Mike Ndukwe, said video streaming, social media activities and automatic downloads were among the factors contributing to rapid data consumption.

Mr Ndukwe explained that requesting a video on TikTok required relatively little data, while downloading and streaming the content consumed significantly more, depending on its resolution and duration.

He said a 15-second TikTok video could consume between two megabytes (MB) and 20MB, depending on its resolution, adding that high-definition videos generally consumed more data than standard-definition content.

According to him, 4G and 5G networks supported higher-quality video streaming, which could increase data consumption when applications automatically selected higher resolutions.

Mr Ndukwe said WhatsApp users could also experience rapid data depletion through automatic downloads, status updates, media shared in groups and chat backups.

He advised subscribers to disable automatic media downloads, restrict background data usage and configure applications to download large files only when connected to Wi-Fi.

The MTN official recommended enabling data-saving features on TikTok and other social media platforms, reducing video resolution and turning off automatic playback where possible. He said MTN provided tools, including the MyMTN app, that let customers monitor data usage in real time and receive alerts.

He added that the company regularly sensitised subscribers on data-saving measures and offered MTN FiberX as an unlimited data option for customers with high data requirements, subject to applicable terms.

Mr Ndukwe said data depletion generally resulted from users’ online activities or phone settings rather than unexplained deductions, urging subscribers to understand how their devices and applications consumed data.

(NAN)