19 March 2008
analysis
Lagos — The likely impact of the roll out of fixed line services by GSM operators in the country on the poor quality of service, which has almost brought the telecoms sector to its knees is the subject of this discourse by Efem Nkanga
When the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe described year 2008 as a year that will see to the improvement of service quality, many Nigerians who were and are still battling with frustrations arising from poor quality of service in the nation's telecoms sector noted his comments as a hype and a stop-gap measure geared at calming frayed nerves.
But of recent, some developments in the sector have made Nigerians wonder if they might still see light down the dark tunnel of poor quality of service (QoS). This ray of hope might be found in the collective efforts of operators in the country, including the CDMA and GSM operators' attempts to ameliorate the situation.
Indeed, two of the operators, MTN and Globacom have in recent times added to their fixed lines services by unveiling new fixed wired and wireless lines that just might help ease congestion on their networks. The operators are not just trying to increase capacity by trying to enable more base stations but also making effective use of their unified licences which give them room to offer their subscribers a bouquet of services that include voice, data and internet as well as fixed wired and wireless services.
Currently, the Nigerian telecoms terrain is GSM fixated with an estimated 97% of Nigerians said to operate on the mobile platform offered by the operators alone. Indeed, Ndukwe, recently advised Nigerians to make more use of fixed lines. He lamented the fact that a lot of pressure has been put on the networks because so many people use their GSM phones for home, for office and for when they are on the move, as opposed to the ideal scenario of using a mobile phone while on the move.
Thus, the recent move by GSM operators to activate their fixed line operations which their unified licence permits is a move stakeholders hope will help ease the frustrations of poor quality service Nigerians are currently grappling with. MTN set the ball rolling last year by acquiring VGC Communications which was operating about 2 fixed lines in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Calabar for $65 million. This acquisition effectively gave MTN a platform to operate and ride on the back of the fixed line platform of the VGC. . MTN has since increased the subscriber base to 4 , in less than a year. In a bid to expand its fixed line telephony base, MTN is said to be in the process of acquiring more private telecoms operators unable to cope with the challenging infrastructural environment of Nigeria . Now Globacom, the nation's second national carrier has added to its own unified licence and national carrier status by unveiling recently fixed wireless services called 'Broad Access'. With an initial roll out of 3 lines into the telecoms space within the next few weeks, Globacom through its BroadAccess is planning to make the 6 lines available to its subscribers in phases. Martins Olowonihi, Chief Operating Officer of Broad Access explained that the unveiling of the fixed line service is a quest by the company to revolutionise the country's underdeveloped fixed telephony by ensuring that no fewer than 3 lines are made readily available in the next 18 months across the six geopolitical zones in the country.
In addition to the offering by GSM operators, their CDMA counterparts are aggressively expanding the uptake of fixed wired and wireless offerings by embracing technologies that will tempt Nigerians to embrace fixed services. The introduction of the GSM in Nigeria seven years ago which opened the window of seamless communications to scores of Nigerians by ushering in affordable services to a people who had for long hungered for it has made the mobile device the only platform most Nigerians use. Fixed line services have not been as popular as the mobile to Nigerians because prior to the introduction of the GSM, Nigeria did not have a robust fixed network infrastructure as is the case in other developed countries before GSM. In other climes because a robust fixed infrastructure was already in place before mobile technology came in, the uptake of mobile did not spread like such a wild fire.
Some of the fixed line services like the Broad Access fixed line service are said to thrive upon a wired optic-fibre platform giving it unlimited bandwidth to avoid network congestion and enhance reliability and quality. Some Nigerians believe that the only way fixed wired or wireless services in the country will be embraced is if operators offering the services, provide subscribers with a triple play platform which will enable video on demand, high quality voice calls, competitive pricing, high speed internet connectivity and voice/data transmission all in one bouquet. For example, the BroadAccess offering of Globacom uses the Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL),) a newModem technology that enables an ordinary telephone line to offer this services and reach speeds up to 1 24kbps.
If you add this to the efforts of the CDMA Operators like Starcomms, Reitel Wireless, Multilinks and new entrant, Visaphone etc who have all promised to hit the nation's telecoms space with a combined 1 million lines in the next two to three years, the recurring congestion being experienced on GSM networks might ease up bit by bit as more Nigerians embrace the fixed lines services leading to improved quality of service that sometimes makes even the smallest task of recharging one's phone a nightmare, not to talk of making calls.
While operators are looking at the fixed line services to help ameliorate poor service quality, the fact still remains that though this is a step in the right direction, there should be more investments in transmission technologies, including fibre optics, overhead satellites, inland submarine cables and the total overhauling of the poor infrastructural base in the country characterized by lack of power which is elsewhere taken for granted.
With countries elsewhere across the globe, enabling an effective fixed line services platform in addition to mobile services, enabled by a sound infrastructure base, poor QOS is an anomaly that is unheard of because the right indices have been put in place to ensure it remains so. It is hoped that operators in Nigeria in collaboration with the relevant government authorities will borrow a leaf from governments that have gotten it right and work together to enable processes that will make effective quality telecoms characterized by on line, all the time quality access in the country a dream come true.
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