One of the things that confuses a lot when buying a smartphone is network band. You may end up getting a smartphone that doesn't have any of the network bands available in you country or the band that your favorite carrier provider has. This is especially the case with 4G networks.

A typical example is when Glo announced their 4G network, many 4G smartphone users in Nigeria where excited only to discover that their phone does not have Glo's 4G network band, despite having 4G feature. Which means the can't use Glo 4G on their phone.

Mostly for 2G and 3G network, this is not a problem because most network providers feature the same bands and these bands are supported by almost all smartphones.

Here are the currently available bands in Nigeria

2G capabilities - GSM 900, GSM 1800

3G capabilities - UMTS 2100

4G capabilities - LTE 700 (28), LTE 800 (20), LTE 900 (8), LTE 1800 (3), LTE 2300 (40), LTE 2600 (7)

And here is a list of 4G bands that network providers in Nigeria have:

1. MTN 4G LTE , supports band 20 (800MHz) and Band 7 (2600MHz)

2. Glo 4G LTE, supports band 28 (700MHz)

3. Etisalat 4G LTE, supports band 3 (1800MHz)

4. NTEL 4G LTE, supports band 8 (900MHz) and Band 3 (1800MHz)

5. Spectranet and Swift, supports band 40 (2300mhz)

6. Smile, supports band 20 (800mhz)

Hopefully, this will serve as a guide when selecting your next smart phone, especially if you plan to use 4G network.