A New Dimension to Nigeria’s Telecom Revolution
- By Abimbola Tooki
- Published April 11th, 2011
- ITWorld
- Unrated
NIGERIA is widely recognised as one of the major markets for telecommunications business opportunities in the world. With a population of over 140 million, Nigeria remains Africa’s most populous nation and is in fact home to at least one fifth of the population of Africa.
The country is also blessed with abundance of natural resources and is the 8th largest producer of oil in the World. The nation therefore has what it takes to attract attention of potential investors to this largely untapped telecommunications market.
The government of Nigeria is conscious of the role telecommunications can play in national development and is committed to ensuring that telecommunications facilities and services are expanded rapidly. Since the democratic governance was ushered in 1999, the attention of the world had turned to Nigeria as the country with the highest potential for ICT investment on the continent. Nigeria has continued to attract the attention of serious local and foreign investors that have come to take advantage of the investment potentials that the nation presents.
Though some companies were issued licences before 1999, full market liberalization only commenced in earnest with government enacting a new Telecom Policy document in September 2000; produced after full stakeholder consultations.
A new law, the Nigerian Communications Act was also enacted in 2003 to boost investor confidence and provide clear rules of engagement for industry stakeholders.
Private investment in the sector has grown from about $50m in 1999 to over $25 billion by 2010 with commensurate rapid growth in subscriber lines.
The nation’s teledensity stands at about 65 per cent with about 89 million connected lines by end of 2010. Despite the progress made so far, Engineer Eugene Juwah, the new helmsman at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) believes Nigeria remains a major market for ICT services.
The need to continue the expansion of the nation’s ICT infrastructure, he says, represents tremendous opportunity to prospective operators for voice, internet and broadband services in the country.
Nigeria is also a major market for long distance network operators and with her central location, has potential to be the ICT hub for the West African region. Nigeria equally possesses ingredients in terms of market size and population that could support local manufacturing.
“We at the Commission believe this period represents a good time for further investment in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector,” Juwah says adding that his administration has placed a new emphasis on the growth of broadband and internet all over the country as a way to promote comprehensive ICT access to all Nigerian citizens.
The current direction of the commission is to help harness the potential of ICTs in achieving Nigeria’s long term vision of becoming one of the top 20 economies by the year 2020.
Juwah also believes that Nigeria, no doubt, has a crucial role to play in narrowing the digital divide between Africa and the developed world. “Our vision is to position Nigeria among the information-rich economies of the world,” he says.
“We are aware that the world is looking up to Nigeria to take advantage of its vast human and material resources and become the catalyst for the economic development of the continent.
“We intend to achieve this by continuing to adopt open and pro-competition regulatory policies and creating attractive investment climate.”
Juwah: Set to Remove Barriers to Telecom Development
That no modern economy can be sustained today without an integral telecommunications infrastructure is widely acknowledged. Robust telecommunications network is important for the economic growth of nations and constitutes a base infrastructure that supports the world economy. Communication is a vital aspect of human existence and effective telecommunications services enhance living standards and improve productivity and efficiency in other sectors.
Thus, communications and the technologies that support it, occupy a strategic position now more than ever in every aspect of human existence; and nations and businesses would become less competitive and lag behind others if they fail to avail themselves of this vital infrastructure of the Information age.
For Nigeria, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) penetration in 1999 when the transition to democratic rule occurred was very low and less than one per cent of the population of this vast country had access to a telephone. The then government identified that this was a major hindrance to development of the nation and decided that there was an urgent need for transformation in the (ICT) sector to stimulate the economy and open up new possibilities across her business, political, social and economic spheres.
In fact by year 2000, Nigeria had only 400,000 connected telephone lines and 25,000 analogue mobile lines. The total teledensity stood at a paltry 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants. Connection costs were prohibitively high and waiting time for fixed lines ran into years. Today, thanks to several factors which include government sector reform policy, an enabling investment climate, the worldwide trend of rapid development in ICT, and the huge potential of the Nigerian market, the story is very different.
A comprehensive new sector legislation, the Nigerian Communication Act (NCA) was enacted in 2003 repealing the 1992 NCC Act. The new Act was to further the full liberalization of the sector and provide the ground rules for the orderly development and governance of the telecommunications sector.
In the ensuing 11 years from 2000, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) licensed several Digital Mobile Operators, Fixed Wireless Access Operators, Long Distance Operators, Internet Service Providers, a Second National Carrier and recently, Unified Access operators. All these have had the collective effect of ensuring full competition in all segments of the telecommunications market. They have also had the effect of promoting rapid deployment of telecom services, resulting in exponential growth in the number of telephone lines in Nigeria.
While between Nigeria’s independence in 1960 and the end of year 2000, the number of connected lines grew at an average of 10,000 lines per annum, since 2001 the telecommunications industry has witnessed an average growth rate of over 10 million lines per annum. By the end of 2010, Nigeria had attained over 80 million lines and the teledensity figures soared from the 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants recorded in 1999, to 65 lines per 100 inhabitants by the end of 2010.
The progress recorded in the industry has been brought about by government’s liberalization of the sector and opening up of the market to private investment. The market reform has helped to accelerate investment flow into the sector and resulting in the rapid roll out of multifarious communications services. This sector transformation has also impacted other sectors of the economy and led improvements in efficiency and productivity, reduction in transaction costs, increased service innovation and better quality of life.
In spite of the liberalization in the sector, government has had a vital role to play in catalyzing the development and growth of the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure and in ensuring the continued existence of a competitive environment that fosters continuous growth and consumer satisfaction. Government achieves this role through the enactment of progressive policy and legal framework for the sector and the establishment of a strong independent Regulatory authority. Therefore, the role of the Nigerian Communications Commission as the industry regulator has been to encourage competition, remove barriers to market entry, oversee interconnection of new operators with incumbents, monitor tariffs and quality of service, protect consumer rights and ensure that affordable telecommunications services are available to all Nigerians.
A New Era
Nigeria has certainly left the telecom state where there were only a few dial-up e-mail providers and Internet service providers (ISPs) and when Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) was the only Telecommunications operator. It was a dark era characterized by slow Internet links, poor service, high cost, lack of infrastructure and an unprogressive telecoms monopoly. Things have certainly changed. So has night turned to day?
Deregulation of the telecommunications sector led to the introduction of major Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM), mobile phone providers MTN Nigeria, Airtel, Globacom and Mtel.
Nigeria’s government had earlier provided the impetus for liberalization by setting up the Nigerian Communications Commission. Although NCC became the regulatory body for Nigeria’s telecom sector in 1992, it is the present government that dealt with the telecom policy, interconnection agreements and the empowerment of NCC. NCC issues licenses to private telecoms companies providing a variety of telecom services to the Nigerian populace.
The GSM Revolution
The GSM revolution began in August 2001 and changed the face of Information and Communications Technology in Nigeria. But the picture will not be complete without mentioning the Private Telephone Operators (PTOs) and other landmarks such as the licensing of Globacom as Nigeria’s second national operator (SNO) as well as the licensing of fixed wireless operators.
Though Globacom is presently more active in the mobile telephony sector (Glomobile), it has the same licence as Nitel. Globacom’s licence constitutes a multi-service package
Juwah: Renewed Vigour in Telecom Regulation
accessibility to the internet in Nigeria. And just as ITU puts it: “If information is power, then the internet must be the easiest way of empowering those that have traditionally been left behind.”
The Success
The facts are there for all to see. There has been substantial improvement in access to telecom facilities and unprecedented growth in the telecoms network. So has night turned to day? Not quite. In view of Nigeria’s size and requirements telecommunications infrastructure is still grossly inadequate. Nigeria is regarded as “one of the biggest telecommunications markets in Africa and the world”. But does size determine quality? It should be more about growth and qualitative infrastructure than just having a big or the fastest growing market.
With the opening up of the telecoms space further, dramatic growth is expected as service and reliability demands increase. However, in-depth penetration and qualitative infrastructure growth is critical.
Enters Juwah’s Six Point Agenda
Given the circumstances, exigencies and urgencies required to achieve spread of basic telephony services in the country, the Commission’s focus in the last 10 years was directed at growing teledensity with the massive deployment of mobile telephony. The result of this was the current impressive statistics of about 89 million active lines and more than 110 million connected lines. Teledensity is now above 65 per cent. It is safe, therefore, to say the country has achieved appreciable voice mobile telephony penetration.
While sustaining this growth, Juwah’s administration has indicated that in the next five years, the regulatory focus shall be directed at six key areas:
1. Consolidation and Integration of mobile Wireless Services;
2. Fixed Line and Broadband Deployment for National Development;
3. Enhanced Competitive Market, Enhanced Choice for the Consumer;
4. Vigorous Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement of Regulations and Directions;
5. National Connectivity for Accelerated Growth;
6. Enhanced International Relations;
Consolidation and Integration of Mobile Services
According to Juwah, the current mobile network in Nigeria is not fully optimized. The nation can derive more value from an enhanced and optimized mobile network, especially with an improved Quality of Service (QoS). The Commission will encourage the upgrade of mobile networks to include 3G data overlays for the implementation of application services including but not limited to mobile payment, estate agency and other entertainment services using the internet as a plank.
The Commission plans to achieve this by implementing the key performance indicators for quality of services that it can possibly monitor independently with zero tolerance for non compliance.
Such wireless network will also deliver enhanced and integrated services to such other national projects such as the Emergency Communications Centres being implemented by the commission in the 36 states and the FCT.
Fixed Line and Broadband Deployment
Nigeria missed a great opportunity for her inability to massively deploy fixed lines when other development-focused nations of the world did. While it is true that mobile phone has attained high penetration and usage, for many homes, businesses and companies, there still exists a yawning need for basic fixed line access with its numerous advantages. Also, the premium nature of mobile services contributes to the issue of its affordability compared with fixed lines.
This has led to some despair in many circles about the ability of this nation to catch up with the robustness of a fixed network complemented by mobile. As a matter of deliberate focus, The Juwah’s administration shall strive to bring fixed lines back to homes, schools, offices and businesses. To achieve this, plans for massive deployment of broadband infrastructure will be explored under the supervision of the new EVC.
Although the Commission is currently working out the details on how to implement this desirable project which would bequeath the nation with an accomplished and robust telephone network for national development, Juwah disclosed recently that the nation will expect more licenses as investors are being informed of new opportunities that the Nigerian market presents.
Enhanced Competitive Market
There is need to enhance the competition in the market place today. Competition brings about the best in all the operators. Competition also breeds best atmosphere for the consumer.
Enhanced competition in the market and availability of choice is a statement of intention by the commission to fight for the interest of the consumer. Cost has always been the greatest complaint of the average consumer in Nigeria.
The commission under Juwah shall undertake to avail the right regulatory atmosphere to ensure that costs continue to drop. In a true competitive environment, he believes there is no reason why prices will not drop. “When you have true competition, prices will drop. We will continue to vigorously pursue programmes that will deepen competition and bring down prices, such as introduction of more operators and programmes such as number portability. We want to address this through strategic actions aimed at improving competition and accountability of the service providers to the consumers of their products and services,” Juwah said.
In this regard, he disclosed that the commission shall improve on some areas of outreach between the service providers and consumers to ensure that consumers are fully aware of their rights. Such issues like deployment of more customer care centres by the operators, as subscriber bases increase, will be pursued with more vigour.
Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement of Regulations
Having used the first few months of his resumption to study the various aspects of the Commission’s activities, Juwah has observed a major lapse in the disposition of the service providers towards compliance to regulations or directions issued by the Commission. This is as a result of a combination of factors, including sanctions for none compliance that are not commensurate to the degree of breach. This is prevalent in spite of the fact that the same service providers are fully consulted during the processes of formulation of the regulations.
In some cases, factors attributable to the harsh operating environment have put the regulator at the long end of wielding the big stick. It would therefore appear that the service providers have taken this soft approach towards enforcement and compliance to regulations for granted in the discharge of their responsibilities to the nation, the Commission and the consumers.
Under the new administration, however, it will no longer be business as usual. As the Commission moves into the next focus of regulation with emphasis on compliance, the Commission will give a lot of emphasis on compliance monitoring and strict enforcement of extant regulations and directions. Since these regulations were products of wide consultation, it is incumbent on the Commission to see to their full compliance. A lot of consumer issues prevalent in the industry today are as a result of tardy compliance to regulations instituted by the regulator. “The situation must change and all the stakeholders in the industry will need to inject a new corporate governance approach towards compliance to existing regulations and directions,” he said.
To give a push in this aspiration, the monitoring and compliance department recently set up by the Commission is being equipped with the human and material resources needed for effective performance of their jobs in line with the new focus of the Commission. Regulations and directives of the Commission will not only be obeyed, but seen to be obeyed.
“In cases where regulations are not equipped with adequate sanctions to compel adherence or recompense, we are going to look at those regulations with a view to effecting reviews as quickly as possible,” he said.
National Connectivity
One of the key milestones in the measurement of the attainment of the vision statement of the Commission is in the reduction of distance to access to telecommunications services for every Nigerian.
Achieving national connectivity through deployment of fibre rings across the nation and cascading broadband and ICT infrastructure will form NCC’s road map in promoting availability and access for national economic and social development.
The programmes and projects of the Universal Service Provision Fund Secretariat, the Wire Nigeria Project (WIN) and the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI), will form the plank for this major focus aimed at accelerated access provisioning in Nigeria. These projects will be restructured to give them more verve to achieve these objectives within realistic timelines. General roll out of broadband access will be encouraged under this initiative.
Juwah disclosed that the Commission is currently working with some international consultants to implement a structured approach for a regulatory framework for optic fibre deployment including an exploratory review of the relevance of the “open access model” to Nigeria.
The “open access model” is a framework for infrastructure sharing where fibre optic cable carriers share the infrastructure used in the deployment of their services. This model can be designed to bridge the gaps in broadband deployment through central deployment to mid and small sized operators at subsidized pricing. The model provides services to operators on a fair and non discriminatory basis.
Without a robust national connectivity, Juwah believes the nation will not derive maximum benefits from the availability of major submarine fibre cables with landing points in Nigeria, and many others expected to land in the nation’s shores. This is why the Commission will intensify efforts to achieve appreciable national connectivity in the next five years.
Enhanced International Relations
The new dispensation will also give more vents to its international relations and interactions. The benefit of this focus translates in the attraction of investments, projects and good image to the country.
With Nigeria’s population and positioning in Africa, its visibility, especially within the international telecom decision making bodies and organisations, needs to be enhanced. In this direction, the Commission will reconstruct its approach to international telecom relations with a view to sharpening its visibility and playing in the mainstream of international relations.
As part of this direction, the Commission recently met with Dr. Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, for the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) in Nigeria to be conferred the status of a Centre of Excellence.
Eugene Juwah: A Biography
With over 30 years experience in Information Technology and Telecommunication, and with more than 20 years experience on directorial level, Juwah is extremely knowledgeable in digital exchanges, base station, data communication and subscriber access networks construction and operations having played coordinating roles in the set up of ETACS, GSM and CDMA Mobile Networks in Nigeria.
He is an experienced network operations director with profound practical knowledge of pricing, billing, interconnection, licensing, regulatory affairs and network fraud control within the Nigerian Environment.
The country is also blessed with abundance of natural resources and is the 8th largest producer of oil in the World. The nation therefore has what it takes to attract attention of potential investors to this largely untapped telecommunications market.
The government of Nigeria is conscious of the role telecommunications can play in national development and is committed to ensuring that telecommunications facilities and services are expanded rapidly. Since the democratic governance was ushered in 1999, the attention of the world had turned to Nigeria as the country with the highest potential for ICT investment on the continent. Nigeria has continued to attract the attention of serious local and foreign investors that have come to take advantage of the investment potentials that the nation presents.
Though some companies were issued licences before 1999, full market liberalization only commenced in earnest with government enacting a new Telecom Policy document in September 2000; produced after full stakeholder consultations.
A new law, the Nigerian Communications Act was also enacted in 2003 to boost investor confidence and provide clear rules of engagement for industry stakeholders.
Private investment in the sector has grown from about $50m in 1999 to over $25 billion by 2010 with commensurate rapid growth in subscriber lines.
The nation’s teledensity stands at about 65 per cent with about 89 million connected lines by end of 2010. Despite the progress made so far, Engineer Eugene Juwah, the new helmsman at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) believes Nigeria remains a major market for ICT services.
The need to continue the expansion of the nation’s ICT infrastructure, he says, represents tremendous opportunity to prospective operators for voice, internet and broadband services in the country.
Nigeria is also a major market for long distance network operators and with her central location, has potential to be the ICT hub for the West African region. Nigeria equally possesses ingredients in terms of market size and population that could support local manufacturing.
“We at the Commission believe this period represents a good time for further investment in Nigeria’s telecommunications sector,” Juwah says adding that his administration has placed a new emphasis on the growth of broadband and internet all over the country as a way to promote comprehensive ICT access to all Nigerian citizens.
The current direction of the commission is to help harness the potential of ICTs in achieving Nigeria’s long term vision of becoming one of the top 20 economies by the year 2020.
Juwah also believes that Nigeria, no doubt, has a crucial role to play in narrowing the digital divide between Africa and the developed world. “Our vision is to position Nigeria among the information-rich economies of the world,” he says.
“We are aware that the world is looking up to Nigeria to take advantage of its vast human and material resources and become the catalyst for the economic development of the continent.
“We intend to achieve this by continuing to adopt open and pro-competition regulatory policies and creating attractive investment climate.”
Juwah: Set to Remove Barriers to Telecom Development
That no modern economy can be sustained today without an integral telecommunications infrastructure is widely acknowledged. Robust telecommunications network is important for the economic growth of nations and constitutes a base infrastructure that supports the world economy. Communication is a vital aspect of human existence and effective telecommunications services enhance living standards and improve productivity and efficiency in other sectors.
Thus, communications and the technologies that support it, occupy a strategic position now more than ever in every aspect of human existence; and nations and businesses would become less competitive and lag behind others if they fail to avail themselves of this vital infrastructure of the Information age.
For Nigeria, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) penetration in 1999 when the transition to democratic rule occurred was very low and less than one per cent of the population of this vast country had access to a telephone. The then government identified that this was a major hindrance to development of the nation and decided that there was an urgent need for transformation in the (ICT) sector to stimulate the economy and open up new possibilities across her business, political, social and economic spheres.
In fact by year 2000, Nigeria had only 400,000 connected telephone lines and 25,000 analogue mobile lines. The total teledensity stood at a paltry 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants. Connection costs were prohibitively high and waiting time for fixed lines ran into years. Today, thanks to several factors which include government sector reform policy, an enabling investment climate, the worldwide trend of rapid development in ICT, and the huge potential of the Nigerian market, the story is very different.
A comprehensive new sector legislation, the Nigerian Communication Act (NCA) was enacted in 2003 repealing the 1992 NCC Act. The new Act was to further the full liberalization of the sector and provide the ground rules for the orderly development and governance of the telecommunications sector.
In the ensuing 11 years from 2000, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) licensed several Digital Mobile Operators, Fixed Wireless Access Operators, Long Distance Operators, Internet Service Providers, a Second National Carrier and recently, Unified Access operators. All these have had the collective effect of ensuring full competition in all segments of the telecommunications market. They have also had the effect of promoting rapid deployment of telecom services, resulting in exponential growth in the number of telephone lines in Nigeria.
While between Nigeria’s independence in 1960 and the end of year 2000, the number of connected lines grew at an average of 10,000 lines per annum, since 2001 the telecommunications industry has witnessed an average growth rate of over 10 million lines per annum. By the end of 2010, Nigeria had attained over 80 million lines and the teledensity figures soared from the 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants recorded in 1999, to 65 lines per 100 inhabitants by the end of 2010.
The progress recorded in the industry has been brought about by government’s liberalization of the sector and opening up of the market to private investment. The market reform has helped to accelerate investment flow into the sector and resulting in the rapid roll out of multifarious communications services. This sector transformation has also impacted other sectors of the economy and led improvements in efficiency and productivity, reduction in transaction costs, increased service innovation and better quality of life.
In spite of the liberalization in the sector, government has had a vital role to play in catalyzing the development and growth of the nation’s telecommunications infrastructure and in ensuring the continued existence of a competitive environment that fosters continuous growth and consumer satisfaction. Government achieves this role through the enactment of progressive policy and legal framework for the sector and the establishment of a strong independent Regulatory authority. Therefore, the role of the Nigerian Communications Commission as the industry regulator has been to encourage competition, remove barriers to market entry, oversee interconnection of new operators with incumbents, monitor tariffs and quality of service, protect consumer rights and ensure that affordable telecommunications services are available to all Nigerians.
A New Era
Nigeria has certainly left the telecom state where there were only a few dial-up e-mail providers and Internet service providers (ISPs) and when Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) was the only Telecommunications operator. It was a dark era characterized by slow Internet links, poor service, high cost, lack of infrastructure and an unprogressive telecoms monopoly. Things have certainly changed. So has night turned to day?
Deregulation of the telecommunications sector led to the introduction of major Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM), mobile phone providers MTN Nigeria, Airtel, Globacom and Mtel.
Nigeria’s government had earlier provided the impetus for liberalization by setting up the Nigerian Communications Commission. Although NCC became the regulatory body for Nigeria’s telecom sector in 1992, it is the present government that dealt with the telecom policy, interconnection agreements and the empowerment of NCC. NCC issues licenses to private telecoms companies providing a variety of telecom services to the Nigerian populace.
The GSM Revolution
The GSM revolution began in August 2001 and changed the face of Information and Communications Technology in Nigeria. But the picture will not be complete without mentioning the Private Telephone Operators (PTOs) and other landmarks such as the licensing of Globacom as Nigeria’s second national operator (SNO) as well as the licensing of fixed wireless operators.
Though Globacom is presently more active in the mobile telephony sector (Glomobile), it has the same licence as Nitel. Globacom’s licence constitutes a multi-service package
Juwah: Renewed Vigour in Telecom Regulation
accessibility to the internet in Nigeria. And just as ITU puts it: “If information is power, then the internet must be the easiest way of empowering those that have traditionally been left behind.”
The Success
The facts are there for all to see. There has been substantial improvement in access to telecom facilities and unprecedented growth in the telecoms network. So has night turned to day? Not quite. In view of Nigeria’s size and requirements telecommunications infrastructure is still grossly inadequate. Nigeria is regarded as “one of the biggest telecommunications markets in Africa and the world”. But does size determine quality? It should be more about growth and qualitative infrastructure than just having a big or the fastest growing market.
With the opening up of the telecoms space further, dramatic growth is expected as service and reliability demands increase. However, in-depth penetration and qualitative infrastructure growth is critical.
Enters Juwah’s Six Point Agenda
Given the circumstances, exigencies and urgencies required to achieve spread of basic telephony services in the country, the Commission’s focus in the last 10 years was directed at growing teledensity with the massive deployment of mobile telephony. The result of this was the current impressive statistics of about 89 million active lines and more than 110 million connected lines. Teledensity is now above 65 per cent. It is safe, therefore, to say the country has achieved appreciable voice mobile telephony penetration.
While sustaining this growth, Juwah’s administration has indicated that in the next five years, the regulatory focus shall be directed at six key areas:
1. Consolidation and Integration of mobile Wireless Services;
2. Fixed Line and Broadband Deployment for National Development;
3. Enhanced Competitive Market, Enhanced Choice for the Consumer;
4. Vigorous Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement of Regulations and Directions;
5. National Connectivity for Accelerated Growth;
6. Enhanced International Relations;
Consolidation and Integration of Mobile Services
According to Juwah, the current mobile network in Nigeria is not fully optimized. The nation can derive more value from an enhanced and optimized mobile network, especially with an improved Quality of Service (QoS). The Commission will encourage the upgrade of mobile networks to include 3G data overlays for the implementation of application services including but not limited to mobile payment, estate agency and other entertainment services using the internet as a plank.
The Commission plans to achieve this by implementing the key performance indicators for quality of services that it can possibly monitor independently with zero tolerance for non compliance.
Such wireless network will also deliver enhanced and integrated services to such other national projects such as the Emergency Communications Centres being implemented by the commission in the 36 states and the FCT.
Fixed Line and Broadband Deployment
Nigeria missed a great opportunity for her inability to massively deploy fixed lines when other development-focused nations of the world did. While it is true that mobile phone has attained high penetration and usage, for many homes, businesses and companies, there still exists a yawning need for basic fixed line access with its numerous advantages. Also, the premium nature of mobile services contributes to the issue of its affordability compared with fixed lines.
This has led to some despair in many circles about the ability of this nation to catch up with the robustness of a fixed network complemented by mobile. As a matter of deliberate focus, The Juwah’s administration shall strive to bring fixed lines back to homes, schools, offices and businesses. To achieve this, plans for massive deployment of broadband infrastructure will be explored under the supervision of the new EVC.
Although the Commission is currently working out the details on how to implement this desirable project which would bequeath the nation with an accomplished and robust telephone network for national development, Juwah disclosed recently that the nation will expect more licenses as investors are being informed of new opportunities that the Nigerian market presents.
Enhanced Competitive Market
There is need to enhance the competition in the market place today. Competition brings about the best in all the operators. Competition also breeds best atmosphere for the consumer.
Enhanced competition in the market and availability of choice is a statement of intention by the commission to fight for the interest of the consumer. Cost has always been the greatest complaint of the average consumer in Nigeria.
The commission under Juwah shall undertake to avail the right regulatory atmosphere to ensure that costs continue to drop. In a true competitive environment, he believes there is no reason why prices will not drop. “When you have true competition, prices will drop. We will continue to vigorously pursue programmes that will deepen competition and bring down prices, such as introduction of more operators and programmes such as number portability. We want to address this through strategic actions aimed at improving competition and accountability of the service providers to the consumers of their products and services,” Juwah said.
In this regard, he disclosed that the commission shall improve on some areas of outreach between the service providers and consumers to ensure that consumers are fully aware of their rights. Such issues like deployment of more customer care centres by the operators, as subscriber bases increase, will be pursued with more vigour.
Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement of Regulations
Having used the first few months of his resumption to study the various aspects of the Commission’s activities, Juwah has observed a major lapse in the disposition of the service providers towards compliance to regulations or directions issued by the Commission. This is as a result of a combination of factors, including sanctions for none compliance that are not commensurate to the degree of breach. This is prevalent in spite of the fact that the same service providers are fully consulted during the processes of formulation of the regulations.
In some cases, factors attributable to the harsh operating environment have put the regulator at the long end of wielding the big stick. It would therefore appear that the service providers have taken this soft approach towards enforcement and compliance to regulations for granted in the discharge of their responsibilities to the nation, the Commission and the consumers.
Under the new administration, however, it will no longer be business as usual. As the Commission moves into the next focus of regulation with emphasis on compliance, the Commission will give a lot of emphasis on compliance monitoring and strict enforcement of extant regulations and directions. Since these regulations were products of wide consultation, it is incumbent on the Commission to see to their full compliance. A lot of consumer issues prevalent in the industry today are as a result of tardy compliance to regulations instituted by the regulator. “The situation must change and all the stakeholders in the industry will need to inject a new corporate governance approach towards compliance to existing regulations and directions,” he said.
To give a push in this aspiration, the monitoring and compliance department recently set up by the Commission is being equipped with the human and material resources needed for effective performance of their jobs in line with the new focus of the Commission. Regulations and directives of the Commission will not only be obeyed, but seen to be obeyed.
“In cases where regulations are not equipped with adequate sanctions to compel adherence or recompense, we are going to look at those regulations with a view to effecting reviews as quickly as possible,” he said.
National Connectivity
One of the key milestones in the measurement of the attainment of the vision statement of the Commission is in the reduction of distance to access to telecommunications services for every Nigerian.
Achieving national connectivity through deployment of fibre rings across the nation and cascading broadband and ICT infrastructure will form NCC’s road map in promoting availability and access for national economic and social development.
The programmes and projects of the Universal Service Provision Fund Secretariat, the Wire Nigeria Project (WIN) and the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI), will form the plank for this major focus aimed at accelerated access provisioning in Nigeria. These projects will be restructured to give them more verve to achieve these objectives within realistic timelines. General roll out of broadband access will be encouraged under this initiative.
Juwah disclosed that the Commission is currently working with some international consultants to implement a structured approach for a regulatory framework for optic fibre deployment including an exploratory review of the relevance of the “open access model” to Nigeria.
The “open access model” is a framework for infrastructure sharing where fibre optic cable carriers share the infrastructure used in the deployment of their services. This model can be designed to bridge the gaps in broadband deployment through central deployment to mid and small sized operators at subsidized pricing. The model provides services to operators on a fair and non discriminatory basis.
Without a robust national connectivity, Juwah believes the nation will not derive maximum benefits from the availability of major submarine fibre cables with landing points in Nigeria, and many others expected to land in the nation’s shores. This is why the Commission will intensify efforts to achieve appreciable national connectivity in the next five years.
Enhanced International Relations
The new dispensation will also give more vents to its international relations and interactions. The benefit of this focus translates in the attraction of investments, projects and good image to the country.
With Nigeria’s population and positioning in Africa, its visibility, especially within the international telecom decision making bodies and organisations, needs to be enhanced. In this direction, the Commission will reconstruct its approach to international telecom relations with a view to sharpening its visibility and playing in the mainstream of international relations.
As part of this direction, the Commission recently met with Dr. Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, for the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) in Nigeria to be conferred the status of a Centre of Excellence.
Eugene Juwah: A Biography
With over 30 years experience in Information Technology and Telecommunication, and with more than 20 years experience on directorial level, Juwah is extremely knowledgeable in digital exchanges, base station, data communication and subscriber access networks construction and operations having played coordinating roles in the set up of ETACS, GSM and CDMA Mobile Networks in Nigeria.
He is an experienced network operations director with profound practical knowledge of pricing, billing, interconnection, licensing, regulatory affairs and network fraud control within the Nigerian Environment.
