Despite all the investments supposedly made by all the telecoms network operators this year, poor quality of service has continued to persist. This anomaly, however, is fast becoming a norm in the Nigerian telecoms space.
Inasmuch as subscribers are worried about the situation and are calling for a total overhaul of the existing processes and modus operandi, network operators have also continued to defend the state of affairs, with a strong indication that the situation obtainable could be the best possible.
The circumstance has been of great concern to telecoms stakeholders in Nigeria, including the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission. But industry watchers have continued to task the NCC over the relative stability of the industry, stressing that the regulator still has a lot to do as far as fixing the industry is concerned.
Telecoms subscribers under the auspices of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers have also called for a quick solution to the problem so that during the Yuletide, when call and text traffic is expected to rise, people will not have challenges communicating with family members, loved ones, friends as well as business associates.
Commenting on this, the President, NATCOMS, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, told our correspondent that the Nigerian subscriber is strongly concerned about the quality of service, and would not fail to commend operators, who provide good quality service.
According to him, the problem of QoS has been attributed to infrastructural deficit on the side of operators, and the earlier investments in the industry are infrastructure-focused, the better it will be for Nigerians who want to communicate seamlessly using their phones.
He said, “Something must be done now. We need more infrastructure like base stations. The NCC must license more infrastructure companies. This trend had been sustained for a long time, and now, we can’t just stay here and fold our arms watching.”
Ogunbanjo said since the QoS issue had affected all subscribers in Nigeria, operators should develop a compensation scheme for subscribers under their networks in the form of bonus airtime and the likes, so that in the end, subscribers get value for every kobo spent on their ‘choice’ network.
“There should be constant compensation for poor QoS. This, we believe, is rational,” he added.
In this light, the Head, Business Development, Helios Tower, a telecoms infrastructure firm in Nigeria, Mr. Myke Ofili, told our correspondent in a telephone interview that the QoS status was dependent on many interconnected issues.
He said a critical look at global telecoms statistics showed that Nigeria should have more telecoms towers than it already has.
According to him, utilisation of telecoms service is increasing without a proportionate expansion of network capacities.
He said, “This problem is very serious because even in a state like Lagos, operators are not given a free hand to build towers. The state is regulating the construction of towers. To build new towers, an operator is required to pay N1.5m per tower. N1m is also paid to maintain an existing tower. This trend is being adopted by a lot of western states in Nigeria.”
Ofili said in the United Kingdom, for instance, there are about 1,500 subscribers tied to a base station; while in Nigeria, over 4,750 subscribers are accommodated on a base station. This, according to him, is a huge stretch for the networks, and remains a strong factor causing poor QoS.
He added, “There must be failed services. To worsen this, majority of the CDMA operators are not operational and everybody is leveraging on just the GSM networks. Our networks are not well distributed. This is also a problem.”
On the average, he said operators powered their generators for 22 hours in a day; and were left with just a two-hour supply from the grid.
He said fibre optic cables were very critical in the operations of telcos, and in some states, it was almost impossible to get the Right of Way to lay cables.
This year alone, telcos have proposed a $6.95bn investment on their networks. As of June this year, different financing deals have been struck in that regard.
Airtel Nigeria is investing $1.5bn in network upgrade; Globacom, $1.25bn; MTN Nigeria, $3bn; and Etisalat, $1.2bn. Despite all these seeming interventionist moves, poor QoS has persisted.
But some industry watchers have suggested that it is important that operators provide a breakdown of these investments so that the regulator can holistically ascertain that such investments, as claimed, are made.
In its last assessment of the industry, the NCC scored only one network high in key Quality of Service parameters.
In the commission’s report entitled, ‘Quality of Service Indicators for Mobile Operators in December 2012,’ and published in March this year, all other operators were found wanting in the Key Performance Indices target as signed in the Memorandum of Understanding between telecoms operators and the NCC for Drop Call Rate, Call Set-up Success Rate, Traffic Channel Congestion and Stand Alone Dedicated Control Channel Congestion.
The President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria, Mr. Lanre Ajayi, had said that one of the responsibilities of the regulator was to ensure competition, which means that the NCC has the responsibility to encourage competition in the industry with the intention of attracting all the benefits that competition brings to the consumers, such as lower tariffs, creativity, innovation and possibly improved quality of service.
He said, “If NCC decides to intensify competition by attracting more investors into the industry, I would not grudge that because it is one of its responsibilities. I am in support of attracting more investments into the industry. If other operators come in, that will add more investment to what already exists in the industry.
“There is room for more investment; we have not reached 100 per cent teledensity. A whole lot of people are still not connected to the Internet. So, there is room for expansion and there is demand for these services. There is infrastructure shortfall, which can only be filled by more investors willing to deploy more infrastructure. So, we need more investment, which means that we need more operators.”
Just last month, President Goodluck Jonathan said investment in the Nigerian telecommunications sector in the past 12 years was worth $25bn.
He said telecommunications was the fastest growing sector of the Nigerian economy, performing twice as much as the next sector – building and construction.
According to him, the telecommunications sector, which is growing at 30 per cent per annum, is contributing eight per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
Jonathan said the strength of the Nigerian telecommunications industry could be seen in the fact that operators had staked $25bn on the expansion of the industry in the past 12 years, adding that there were still immense opportunities for growth.
But experts say amid these achievements, there is the need for the country to promote quality and ensure there is value for money spent by subscribers, who are the biggest agents of growth in the sector.
It is also believed that the country will see more growth if good quality of service is strictly adhered to, as this remains a critical factor needed to build confidence of subscribers on their network operators.
Source: Punch
