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LET
me first of all thank those of you who have been acknowledging efforts of the
commission in facilitating about the revolution that is being witnessed in the
telecom industry today. I also want to thank those who have been giving the
impression that the commission may not have been discharging its
responsibilities to their expectations. Judging from the monumental strides
recorded in the industry under the regulatory guidance of the commission within
the last three years, it must be admitted that a lot of positive changes have
taken place. The tremendous improvement in access to telephones in Nigeria since
2001 attests to the positive developments, which have transformed the
telecommunications industry.
The confidence the NCC restored to the country through its
auction of spectrum licences in 2001, which was
adjudged nationally and internationally to be transparent, fair and
professionally handled, laid the foundation on which the telecommunications and
other sectors built their success stories in this country. Nigeria, in the few
years after the auction, has witnessed an unprecedented increase in private
sector participation in the telecommunications industry.
Following the successful
licensing of Digital Mobile Operators, the commission also licensed regional
Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) operators, Long Distance Operators and a Second
National Operator. The licensing of several Internet Service Providers has also
encouraged fast growth of the Internet nationwide.
Nigeria can now boast of a
vibrant telecommunications sector where competition has given rise to each
service provider striving to offer more incentives than its competitor in order
to attract subscribers.
Private investment in the
sector grew from about $50 million in 1999 to $2.1 billion in 2002, and it is
projected that by the end of 2003, it would have grown to about $4 billion.
Directly related to the
increased investment is employment opportunities in the telecommunications
sector which has been growing significantly. Other sectors of the economy have
also been benefiting substantially from increased activities in the telecom
sector. For example, the advertising industry that has gained important accounts
from the major players who are keen on dominating the market with the help of
high profile campaigns and promotions.
Universal Access and wider
penetration of telecommunications services to underseverved
and remote geographical areas in Nigeria were given a boost by the commission
with the awarding of 62 regional Fixed Wireless Access
licences on a state by state basis. The teledensity
of the country has increased significantly from a total of about 450,000
connected phone lines (almost all of which were fixed in year 2000 to 2.2
million (702,000 fixed and 1.5 mobile) by the end of 2002. It is projected to
grow to about 4.1 million lines (1,200,000 fixed and 2,900,000 mobile) by
December 2003. In Nigeria today, it is the case of the operators not expanding
fast enough to satisfy the demand for lines.
Use of phones now cuts across
social classes. Before now, a potential subscriber to either the fixed service
or the analogue mobile service in the country some years back needed over
=N=150,000 to get connected, which made phones only accessible to a few. Now
prices of both fixed and digital mobile phones have crashed resulting in phone
owners now cutting across all social classes including clerks, artisans, taxi
drivers, students, market women being among current phone owners. All these have
changed how businesses are transacted in Nigeria today.
In spite of the foregoing, it
is important to note that the liberalised
telecommunications market in Nigeria is still very young, so the problems being
experienced in the networks today are not uncommon. Like networks in other parts
of the world, they will disappear at maturity. However, NCC will continue to
deplore deficiencies in the performance of the operators and will promote
efforts aimed at achieving total customer satisfaction from the operators. The
commission recently developed and published minimum grade of service thresholds
below which quality of service should not fall.
INTERCONNECTIVITY
The Nigerian Communications
Commission has achieved a lot in the area of facilitating interconnection
between operating companies. You will recall that in year 2000 before the GSM
operators were licensed, Private Telecommunications Operators (PTOs)
had a lot of problems interconnecting with NITEL. NCC delved fully into the
matter and even drafted the first interconnection agreement, which both parties
eventually adopted. This led to the seamless interconnection that is now being
enjoyed between the fixed line operators and NITEL. The role of NCC in resolving
these issues should never to be underrated.
Before the roll out of GSM,
NITEL claimed that it did not have the facilities to interconnect the GSM
operators. NCC through government machinery at the highest level prevailed on
NITEL to ensure that the roll out took place on schedule and that the GSM
operators were interconnected. NCC at that time was able to resolve the
interconnected rates settlement disputes between the operators at a landmark
meeting held at its head office in June 2001.
After the roll out of the GSM
networks, NITEL has not been able to keep pace with the demand for required
interconnect resources due to poor infrastructural
facilities. NCC once again prevailed on government to ensure that NITEL made the
necessary purchases to expand their transmission and Switching E1's. This has
enabled NITEL to meet the level of interconnection it has achieved with other
operating companies today.
Inspite
of this, however, it is true to say that NITEL has still not been able to
install the necessary equipment to enable mobile to mobile interconnection
between its mobile network to other mobile networks,
Consequently, calls to and from NITEL mobile network have to transit through its
fixed network to other GSM operators network. We have information that the
recent expansion contract award by NITEL will equip its switches for mobile to
mobile direct interconnection. When this is achieved, the situation will improve
significantly.
NCC also intervened in
September last year to settle interconnection billing settlement disputes
between NITEL and the GSM operators. In a very professional and painstaking
intervention process the commission resolved the matter, which enabled payments
to be made between the parties.
NCC has also initiated moves
to ensure that more Els are allocated between the
operators. Today, we might not have achieved seamless interconnection between
NITEL and other GSM operators, but it is true to say that the situation has
improved significantly from what it used to be. It is also true to say that
there is seamless interconnection between GSM operators and other Private
Telecommunications Operators (PTOs) in the network
and mobile to mobile between Econet and MTN. We can
therefore say that there is about 80 per cent successful
interconnection as far as the Nigerian network is concerned. We can
therefore say that the Nigerian network has performed well. The commission
believes that as soon as NITEL gets its acts together, expands its transmission
and switching E1 facilities, improves its billing system to capture all calls
within its network and implement mobile to mobile interconnection, the problem
would have been largely solved. It has not been NCC's
policy to heat up the telecommunications environment unnecessarily by slamming
sanctions on operators at this time the network is being expanded and the
government trying to attract investment. Especially when we know the genesis of
the problem. If there are infrastructural
inadequacies, then issuing a regulatory fiat or ruling on the matter as some
people have proposed will not suffice.
PSD to HTML Developer Helps You Create Your Website in a Highly Designed Way. PSD to HTML - find out a company for yourself which can provide you with the service. NITEL has had the
privatisation burden hanging over its neck since the
past two years. This has limited its ability to invest on its network expansion
requirements on a timely manner. The managing directors have been changed four
times since year 2000 and this comes with changes in senior management and board
membership. It was therefore difficult to even know who to hold responsible.
With these limitations on the NITEL's operational
capacity, it was not able to play the major role the incumbent is supposed to in
the fast evolving industry. All these would seem to have changed with the new
management contractors now at the helm of affairs in NITEL. It is important to
emphasis here that the issue of interconnection is not necessarily a measure of
the regulator's effectiveness since it is widely acknowledged that it is a
commercial transaction between two operating companies. Also it does not have a
quick fix solution. In other countries, interconnection is and has always been a
major issue in the telecommunication business. The Chinese telecom industry is
probably still in quagmire in resolving the interconnection problems between
China Mobile (the incumbent) with 80 per cent market share and Unicom, an
independent mobile provider established in 1994. They were operating as islands
because subscribers of Unicom and China Railcom were
not able to talk to China Mobile customers. In Mozambique, the second GSM
operator, Vodaphone has not been able to agree on
terms of interconnection with the incumbent operator after negotiating for a
period of over a year. In the more advanced economies such as the UK and
Germany, after the liberalisation arguments
continued to occur on the issue of interconnection. In the United States, one of
the hottest issues is the Unbundling Network Elements (UNES) which has pitched
incumbent carriers against the new entrants on matters of infrastructure sharing
and co-locations. The same interconnection issue exists in Mali today where the
incumbent operator has not been able to interconnect with the new second mobile
operator. It is therefore true to say that in a liberalised,
multi-operator environment interconnectivity issues will continue to feature.
ISM FREQUENCY
We feel it is necessary to
comment on the various contentious publications in respect of the ban placed on
the use of ISM bands for commercial purposes. ITU assigned the ISM primarily for
Industrial Scientific and Medical (ISM) use. So our directive is not contrary to
international regulations.
Despite the fact that NCC did
not license anybody in the band, we still have the responsibility over
monitoring its use. We are also obliged to intervene if an
ISM equipment is interfering with users in other bands.
NCC will be failing in her
regulatory duties if a consumer complains of poor service or financial loss and
we refuse to attend to him on the excuse that he has signed up with an ISP
operating in an unlicensed band.
ISPs are free to connect
their customers through new fixed wireless operators with Internet capability,
so they do not need to close down their businesses when they vacate the ISM band
in December 2003. There are alternatives they can use.
The request by ISPAN to
regulate ISPs or monitor the band is not feasible since they don't have any
statutory or legal backing to conduct enforcement or sanction anybody who
violates their rules. NCC is not in any way stalling or precluding innovative
use of the ISM bands, such as blue tooth, IEEE 802.11 (a, b, g),
WiFi Hot Spots, WLAN, etc. As said earlier,
appropriate announcement will be made on these in future. We will continue to
engage the ISP in discussions to ensure that the best decisions are made for
Nigeria.
NEW COMMUNICATIONS BILL
The outgoing National
Assembly was able to pass a communication bill just time before the expiration
of the life of the legislative arm of government. As soon as the president gives
his accent to it, we will have a new Act for the industry.
NEW INTERCONNECT
REGULATION
The NCC has also facilitated
enactment of new interconnect regulation which was signed recently by the
minister of communications.
LIBERALISATION SCORE CARD
The policy of
liberalising the telecommunications market, which
commenced in 1993, got a major boost in 1999 with the installation of democratic
governance in the country. Since then, notable strides have been attained by the
Obasanjo administration in the telecom sector.
Market
liberalisation policy has been very successful and has contributed
positively to the quest to rapidly expand telecommunications infrastructure in
the country. Many more Nigerians now have access to telecommunications
facilities and the country is now quoted as one of the fastest growing markets
for telecommunications in Africa. Liberalisation has
also led to substantial foreign capital inflow, stimulation of local investment
and local indigenous skills acquisition and technology transfer.
It must be mentioned here
that the liberalisation process has succeeded and
achieved so much during the life of present government because of commitment at
the highest level of government to the independence of the regulator. In
addition, government has been very consistent with its regulatory policy and is
committed to openness and transparency.
FUTURE EXPECTATIONS
The next few months will
witness the roll out of a number of new operating companies. The second national
operator, Globacom is billed to roll out its
services by the end of this month. Some newly licensed wireless operators are
now conducting final tests to roll out networks - Startech
Connections in the North, Oduatel in the West and
Rainbownet in the East.
The long distance operators,
such as MTS and NEPSKOM are also gearing up to commence roll out of services.
With these networks in place,
the pace of growth of the national network will be accelerated tremendously and
will lead to increase in choice and improved services to consumers.
The next few months will also
see some specific initiatives universal service provision, with the setting up
of Universal Service Provision (USP) Fund. The aim of government is to ensure
that every hamlet in this country has access to telecommunications facilities in
the next few years.
The commission will also
continue to expand its capacity to continue to meet the challenges of fast
growing telecom market. We will continue to retrain our staff as well as expand
the human and material resources levels as required.
CONCLUSION
The Nigerian Communications
Commission is far ahead of its peers as far as regulatory processes are
concerned in the African continent. We also believe that NCC has been delivering
on its key mandates which has earned it the confidence of all the operators in
the network in Nigeria and internationally. We are aware that there is still a
lot of work to be done, and we are equipping ourselves to meet the expectations
of the Nigerian people who have continued to encourage us through letters of
commendation and words of encouragement for the humble contributions we have
made to the telecommunications industry since the advent of this administration.
We will continue to depend on their patience and understanding, while we
endeavour to improve services to ensure that Nigeria
continues its march towards establishing an information
rich and information enabled society.
Culled from Guardian
6/10/03 |
