Four years after the global
system took off in Nigeria Reactions about it’s blessings are still
mixed. While some say it astronomically affected many aspects of
Nigeria positively, From corporate life to even rural life, others
say the Eldora do for Nigeria telecoms is still far as reported by
Bayero Agabi.
he AIT InfoTech Network web site is
the online archive and resource centre for the AIT
InfoTech Network television program, which has been broadcasting
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providing news, feature and education regarding Information and
Communications Technology.
From 1885 to 1886, when the
British colonial masters set up internal telecoms for effective
communication which later gave birth to Post and Telecoms and later
Nitel in 1985, the average Nigerian never witnessed the kind of
telephone explosion that thrilled the GSM take off in 2001. The
advent of GSM eliminated the status symbol attached to telephony and
the monopoly of Nitel.
Opinions:
 "The
consumer requires more in terms of quality of service, he needs
bigger foot print when he travels, and that will be our
endeavour." - Glomobile executive
|
The advent of GSM, the global system for mobile communication has
actually brought a lot of positive development in almost all sectors
of the economy.
Between 2001 and 2005, Nigeria recorded well over 15millions lines
with tele-density now put at 1.15%. Investment flow into the sector
is also put at about 15billion dollars; job creation and
infrastructural development have equally enjoyed a boost.
It has facilitated a lot of things, immigration has been easy, the
issue of getting across to people; it has not only boosted the
economic situation in the country it has also made accessibility
easy in all it’s ramification.
To many people, the cost of talking is still creating a deep hole in
their pockets.
"The
industry operators have formed a cartel where they sit overnight and
make decisions to
 "The
major problem we’ve always had is arbitrary increase in
tariff." -A rural user
|
increase
prices at the detriment of their subscribers. And one major problem
we have is that we really keep wondering if the authorities are
aware of all these. For instance now, call centres now make calls
for as much as N30, some N35; it was not like this before."
"At times
you want to recharge, you buy credit, you try the recharge severally
and it doesn’t go through. In most of those cases, there are
instances that there are people whose lives are at stake and they
want to make calls and they are not able to do so."
 "They
should improve in their entire network, Global, MTN, Mtel,
Vmobile, all the network." - Urban user
|
In addition to this
headache is the failure of both the regulatory body, NCC and the GSM
operators
 "The
NCC chairman should really talk about the tariff because the
money being paid per second is still high. In other countries,
in developed countries it’s not like that." -An
urban user |
to meet certain
requirements of the digital mobile license (DML). For instance,
section 3, subsection1 of the NCC digital mobile license makes it
mandatory for the operators to provide toll free lines to fire
service, ambulances, the police and other emergency services.
Section 2, subsection 1 of the same act, makes it a must for GSM
operators to produce directories of their subscribers within the
first year of their operations. All of these failures couples with
bad business practices is giving the regulatory body a headache.
 "It
is causing quite a lot of distress in the sector. At the
moment, our estimation is like it’s about 16million or more in
terms of debt, which needs to be addressed. The negative
impact of this continuous debt pattern which is being born by
those who are in the industry, those who I would believe have
been observing good corporate governance of the industry
include: constricting cash, starving operators of much needed
funding to continue to roll out operations. Apart from that,
it shows that there is a distress in the seventh segment in
the market which will definitely negative impact on the
ultimate consumers" - Ibironke
Oyeronke, MTN Corporate Affairs |
 "There
are many companies owing huge sums of money, not only to those
they purchase goods and services from but also owing
interconnect charges, spectrum fees, statutory fees and so on."
- Ernest Ndukwe (NCC) |
The Big Debt Question
At present, over 25 billions naira is owed between the operators
from unsettled interconnectivity bills couples with insincerity
among the operators. This and network instability is giving the
operators cause to worry.
 "Today
we all carry more than one mobile, not because we really want to
show status but because you want to have guaranteed that at any
point in time, you have a service from one of the operators."
A telecom operator |
In the first year of their
operations, they had over 1million lines over the provisions of the
license which provides a hundred thousand in 12 months, 150 thousand
in 16months and 5% coverage of the states of the country in 36
months. However, call drops, call completion and capacity for heavy
data and video usage is still a golly to cross few months to the
expiration of their exclusivity license in 2006.
