Guardian

ADEYEMI ADEPETUN, in this report, examines the need for collaborative efforts among the regulator, operators and the citizens  to address the declining telecommunications services in the country.

IF Telecommunications subscribers in Nigeria were polled today about what they want from their operators this year, only one request would top the list-improved services.

From Lagos to Kaduna, Port Harcourt to Gombe, the song on the lips of subscribers is that telecommunications service delivery remains below expectation.

It is no gainsaying that the past year was characterised by one of the worst spells of sub-par quality of service in many years.

Statistics showed that Nigeria’s telecoms sector can today confidently boast of having about 219 million connected lines, with 109 million been active.

Besides, the country’s teledensity has witnessed tremendous growth, moving from 68.7 per cent in January to 78.2 per cent as at October 2012.

By mid 2012, the telecommunications industry regulator yielded to public pressure to take action over the issue at least twice.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) imposed a N1.17 billion fines on all the major telecoms operators in the country in the first half of the year, and in the second half of the year, imposed a ban on all manner of promotions by the operators. The two actions did nothing to bolster the poor quality of service across the sector.

Perhaps, to dispassionately dissect the issue, a review of that challenging year would be in order. The year, 2012 was most unusual in terms of the challenges that hit the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry in Nigeria.

The worst cases of equipment vandalism were recorded last year by virtually all the operators, beginning from January to December. But more importantly, it was also a year of one of the most widespread natural disasters in the country. A series of floods described by experts as the worst in five decades ravaged most parts of Nigeria putting many base stations out of commission or out of the reach of maintenance engineers for weeks and months.

The flooding halted the roll out plans of some operators and negatively impacted a massive network modernisation and swap-out project by the country’s leading ICT Company, MTN. The project was aimed at significantly boosting the capacity of the network and enabling the operator to provide significantly enhanced quality of service for its millions of subscribers, among other things.

The modernisation exercise was started in April to be completed in nine months, but the natural disaster has apparently made nonsense of the projected completion date.

The past year was also the point when armed insurgents dramatically entered the telecoms scene, hitting a number of telecom installations. In the first of attacks, hundreds of mobile phone masts belonging to telecom operators and telecom infrastructure service providers in northern Nigerian cities of Kano, Maiduguri, Gombe, Bauchi and Potiskum were hit in two consecutive days of co-ordinated attacks.

One of the major operators, Airtel was to later announce that about 53 of its installations were attacked, disrupting operations in 193 sites across the Northern part of Nigeria. The other major operators were also affected in various dimensions.

Thousands of telephone subscribers in the affected regions were thrown out of service for weeks before normalcy was restored. Till date, some sites cannot be rebuilt, as members of the host communities’ resisted efforts by telecoms operators to carry out repairs and replacement of damaged infrastructure.

One can hardly blame the terrified residents who are kicking against the rehabilitation of the destroyed base stations or the citing of new ones in their vicinity. They have come to associate such infrastructure with armed invasion, which could occasion harm to community members. Yet, the pertinent question is, how can they be provided telecom services without base stations being built? How can congestion be eased without more base stations being built?

The armed insurgents hit again in December. In what seemed to be a coordinated operation, two suicide bombers armed with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) attempted to attack the installations of two major GSM operators in the city of Kano. If they had succeeded, millions of subscribers would have been thrown out of coverage. The two attackers died in the incidents while a security guard of one of the operators sustained injuries.

Aside from the foregoing, 2012 was the year that most of the pre-existing challenges in the in the operating environment assumed alarming dimensions. The issue of multiple regulations, for instance, reached a stage in April when two agencies of government openly battled one another over the right to regulate telecommunications base transceiver stations (BTS).

The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) shut down MTN Nigeria’s base station at EFAB Estate, Mbora District, in Abuja. The agency cited non-compliance with setback requirements.

The regulator of the industry, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) apparently was not consulted by NESREA before taking the action. Consequently, NCC officials, with newsmen in tow, stormed the BTS to reopen it a few days later, affirming that it met all requirements set by the regulator for setting up base transceiver stations in Nigeria.

Not to be outdone, NESREA officials with its own entourage of newsmen returned to the site to reseal it, insisting on its right to enforce setback requirements for base stations in the country. While this was going on, thousands of subscribers covered by the base station in Abuja were consigned to a long spell of off and on telecom coverage.

While the matter was later resolved, it was a poignant reminder of the absurd height multiple regulation and rent-seeking behaviour of government agencies had risen to, and the adverse toll it was taking on telecom service delivery.

But that was not all that the past year had in store. Apart from terrorism and natural disaster, many operators witnessed some of the worst wanton damage to their infrastructure by thieves, vandals and saboteurs in 2012.

In April, about 450 base transceiver stations (BTS) belonging to MTN in the Kano, Abuja and Kaduna regions were cut off from the rest of the network following multiple damage to the company’s extensive fibre-optic network. The development threw many subscribers in the region out of coverage for days before the operator could effect necessary repairs.

Again in December, MTN’s fibre-optic network was cut in at least seven different locations namely, between Port Harcourt and Eket, Kano and Zaria, Abuja and Akwanga, Asaba and Owerri, Ahoada and Port Harcourt, Benin and Owo and finally, between Ikeji and Owo. All the cuts happened within five minutes of each other.

All through the year, the company recorded an average of 70 cuts in various locations per month, with some of them reportedly manifesting uncommon coordination.

With this cursory review of the past year, it should be clear why quality of service suffered severely in the year. Rather than speeding up the roll out of additional infrastructure to accommodate the huge demand for service at the market place, some of the existing infrastructure was actually lost, with some of them, yet to be replaced.

To effect a positive change in the New Year therefore, stakeholders need to harmonise efforts to urgently arrest the declining QoS, which is an ill wind that blows no one any good. Foreign Direct Investment in the telecoms sector is about $25bn. Operators would not trifle with this massive investment by offering sub-par quality of service, especially as they know that there are fewer avenues to kill a brand than consistently offering poor quality of service.

Again, it has actually been established that, telecom operators, like their customers, stand to lose from network glitches. A recent study by a renowned hardware and software company, Oracle, indicated that telecom operators lose an average of $2 million (about N312m) an hour to network glitches in Nigeria.

Oracle attributes most of the glitches to the occurrence of ‘unplanned events,’ some of which have been enumerated above.

Stakeholders need to tackle the challenges enumerated above if there is to be satisfactory quality of service in 2013. There is need for government to encourage rapid rollout of service and expansion of existing capacity of operators. Difficulties in getting permits to erect base stations or lay cables should be removed.

Stakeholders must move to fast-track efforts to declare telecom infrastructure as critical national assets. If there is no protection for existing facilities, it will be difficult for telecoms operators to convince their shareholders to make the additional investment necessary to achieve satisfactory quality of service in the country.

It is also important to note the relationship between tariff reduction and congestion. Any time there is tariff reduction, there is always congestion. This became apparent in 2012 when nearly all the operators had tariff plans or promos that enabled customers to use free credit. Everyone tried to use the network more and day-time congestion hit new heights. In the 2013, efforts should be geared towards building telecom capacity to such a stage that increased usage of the networks by subscribers does not lead to congestion.

There is also an urgent need to arrest the spiraling insecurity in the country. All stakeholders, especially, the government and the operators need to collaborate to achieve this. Investment will be difficult where safety of life and investment is not sure.

There is also the need for government to get power right this year. No sector can run seamlessly on generators, least of all, telecoms, which is made up of sensitive components and equipment.

Despite the provisions made for alternative power by operators, a lion share of their downtimes is still traceable to power-related challenges. Improvement in the power from the national grid will positively impact the quality of service available in the sector.

These are the measures that will help to improve service quality in the sector this year, and not imposition of fines or other similar sanctions. Fines paid to the NCC are a deduction from funds that operators should be investing in the network.

Lamenting the increase in subscribers’ agony, the President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, condemned the poor quality of service experienced by subscribers on various networks in 2012, lamenting that the situation had remained the same, even in the New Year.

He, however, urged telecoms operators to work towards significantly improving quality of service in 2013.

The NATCOMS president believed that with the planned introduction of mobile number portability in the first quarter of 2013, telecoms operators would need to improve their network quality to be able to withstand the increased competition that would spring up when the MNP was introduced.

He said, “we are all witnesses to developments in terms of sanctions, sanctions and sanctions coming from the Nigerian Communications Commission to the operators, all as a result of the decline in general quality of service, which NCC said did not match up with the commission’s set Key Performance Indicators and as such they were penalised.”

Ogunbanjo noted that the networks were facing a number of challenges, ranging from multiple taxations, high cost and delay in granting operators Right of Way permits, constant fibre cuts and willful damage to telecoms infrastructure, among others, submitting that “all these have adverse effects on quality of service.”

He added, “last year also, we were all living witnesses to the onslaught launched against telecoms facilities in some part of the country, where close to 30 base stations belonging to operators were bombed by suspected terrorists. Indeed, all this affected the quality of service.”

Interestingly, both the minister of Communications Technology and the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Mrs. Omobola Johnson and Dr. Eugene Juwah have expressed optimism in ensuring that subscribers get value for their money in 2013.

Johnson said her major target in the year was to ensure that there are appreciable improvement in telecoms services in the country, by ensuring that perceived bottlenecks, which impacted on the sector’s performance last year were dealt with.

She said the ministry will be looking at the issue of multiple taxations, right of way challenges, works towards ensuring telecoms infrastructure becomes critical national infrastructure.

Juwah, among other things said the commission would keep an eye on the operators to ensure they render quality of service in 2013.

By and large, government and stakeholders must find sustainable methods of supporting the industry by improving the operating environment in the interest of every one.