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Nigeria: Nitel - 'Other Operators Cut Our Cables'
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This Day (Lagos)
30 January 2008
Posted to the web 31 January 2008
Patrick Ugeh
Abuja
The Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL PLC has accused other operators laying their cables along the same side of the highways as the First National Carrier of causing a series of cuts on its high capacity optical fibre backbone in parts of the country.
According to a press statement issued by Bala Ibrahim Abdulkadir,Deputy General Manager/ Head (Corporate Communications Department), NITEL PLC Corporate Headquarters, Abuja, the series of cuts are responsible for the discomfort NITEL customers have been experiencing in the last couple of weeks.
"The first cut took place during the new year festivities around Onitsha, Anambra State when a major GSM service provider cut NITEL's major cable which links Lagos-Benin-Enugu-Abuja and which carries the bulk of the traffic along the route," the telecommunication outfit said.
"Just when NITEL was sealing the joints of the cut, another telecommunications company licensed to provide long distance transmission services but working for another GSM operator cut the same NITEL cables at Otu-Ore near Benin City while laying their own cables. A third cut was reported on the same stretch of NITEL cable again around Benin City, this time by a PTO (Private Telecommunications Operator)."
"The series of cuts have heightened NITEL's concern for greater care by operators in the telecommunications industry to avoid any act, willful or otherwise, that would have any or all of the triple negative consequences of disruption of service, ndegradation of network infrastructure and reduction in service quality. This is because each cut of a major backbone like has been the case of NITEL's optical fibre cable is capable of having any combination of these negative consequences", Abdulkadir added.
For NITEL to experience three major cuts of its major cable backbone by three telecommunications companies in this month alone, the organization said, calls for concern by stakeholders in the industry, adding that this was particularly so in view of the recent concerns by the National Assembly on the quality of telecommunications services in the country.
"It is also worrisome to NITEL that other operators choose to lay their cables on the same side of the highway as NITEL's underground cable.
"Some of the operators even lay their cables right on top of NITEL's existing cable path. This does not only increase the possibility of a cut of NITEL cable but also impedes NITEL's ability to maintain its own cable laid below a newly laid cable", it lamented.
It recalled further that during the Christmas and Sallah festivities last month, about four
kilometre-length of NITEL's high capacity fibre optic cables were destroyed around Carter Bridge in Lagos when some vandals opened a cable duct, poured inflammable liquid like petrol in the duct and set the cables ablaze. The cables burnt over the night into the early hours of the next day before the site was located by NITEL officials.
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"Despite these injuries to its cable system and the resultant consequences on service provision, NITEL will remain focused on the provision of reliable services to customers," Abdulkadir stated. "This is in the Company's renewed determination to make year 2008 a year to focus on its customers", the company said.
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