Daily Independent (Lagos)
Emma Okonji
9 October 2008
Lagos — Telecom companies may have good reasons to expand their networks outside the shores of Nigeria, but the question is whether they have satisfactorily covered Nigeria with their services in such a standard that is acceptable to its over 53 million subscribers.
Good business plan, they may say, but the issue is not how far, but how well they have been able to manage the telecom industry in Nigeria that has been fraught with unstable network quality yet adjudged as the fastest growing market in the world.
In just seven years of operation, most of the operators are looking at offering services beyond Nigeria, a situation that appears to suggest that the Nigerian telecom market has been saturated.
Pan African operator MTN continued its acquisition spree last week, snapping up two service providers on the Ivory Coast.
MTN said it has acquired 100 per cent of the Ivory Coast's second biggest land line operator, Arobase, as well as internet service provider Afnet, even though financial details were yet to be revealed as at press time.
Globacom, which commenced operations in Nigeria on August 29, 2003, and has raked in over 20 million subscribers on its network, out of the 53 million active subscribers' number across all telecom networks, has equally gone multinational, having rolled out in Benin Republic few months ago, and has recently won license to operate GSM in Ghana. It is equally eyeing other countries for its expansion project.
Zain, which bought into Celtel Nigeria few months ago, has announced the commencement of commercial service in Saudi Arabia and the expansion of its innovative world's first borderless network, also known as 'One Network.'
Zain in a statement recently, said it is also eyeing the West coast of Africa, preparatory to commencing commercial service in Ghana soon.
According to Zain Group CEO Dr Saad Al Barrak, the company is launching the service with a coverage area of 95 per cent of the Kingdom's population. Its state-of-the-art mobile network will initially cover 53 per cent of the population in 36 major cities and 14 highways spanning over 4,000 kilometres.
If not for anything else, telecom operators aught to have considered making their networks stronger and free from the several hiccups it is currently facing, before thinking of expanding their networks beyond the shores of Nigeria.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC's)dream for rural telephony remains a mirage, as most telecom operators are yet to take their services to remote areas of the country, despite NCC's incentive for them through the State Accelerated Broadband Initiative (SABI). Most telecom operations are centered in urban cities, leaving the rural community out of the telecom revolution in the country.
The National Assembly members have had course to summon telecom operators over poor quality of service, yet the situation remains the same.
Speaking on the issue of poor telecom service in the country, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, National President of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON)said although there has been some improvement, but such improvement is very infinitesimal, considering the growth rate of the telecom sector. The effect of poor quality of service according to him is enormous, especially in the era of digital economy where people are looking for data and information. Improvement in quality is still relative. Such improvement is just like moving from worse to worse, or from worse to bad. Improvement from good to best is more in the positive and that is what we want, Ekuwem said.
Just last week, MTN Nigeria apologised to its subscribers for the difficulties some of them have been facing while attempting to recharge their phones in the past few days.
Mrs. Amina Oyagbola, Corporate Services Executive for MTN, in a statement said the situation followed a routine upgrade of MTN equipment. "While the equipment upgrade was ongoing, recharge requests from subscribers came in unanticipated volumes and queued up in the system, awaiting their turns to be processed. Our engineers have long completed the exercise and the requests are now being processed as quickly as possible", she explained.
Mrs. Oyagbola assured MTN subscribers that all subscribers' recharge requests will be attended to and fully processed in due course and service will be restored to normal.
She thanked MTN subscribers for their support, patience and understanding, whilst apologising most sincerely on behalf of MTN management for the disruption and inconvenience caused.
The issue is this: For how long will subscribers continue to listen to apologies from network operators over their inefficiencies, yet they are looking beyond the shores of Nigeria to roll out more of their services without consolidating their network operations in the country.
Mr. Deolu Ogunbanjo, President of National Association of Telecom Subscribers (NATCOMS)who spoke on the issue of expansion beyond the shores of Nigeria, said the idea is not a bad one, if only telecom operators could first satisfy Nigerian subscribers before eyeing operations in other countries. Nigeria subscribers and the economy stand to loose a great deal if the operators fail in their operations in Nigeria, in an attempt to expand their operations beyond the shores of Nigeria.
But MTN said the move to expand will give MTN a strong foothold in Cote d'Ivoire's fixed line and broadband market as well as a platform for converged services. MTN already operates a cellular network in the country, and both Arobase and Afnet run WiMAX networks.
MTN has been expanding its footprint of late, and in June entered into an agreement with Verizon Business, to acquire the US carrier's South African operation, Verizon Business South Africa.
Merger discussions with Indian carrier Reliance Communications appear to have ended, but if they had come to fruition would have created an emerging markets powerhouse.
The Indian deal was posited as a takeover of Reliance by MTN and followed in the wake of collapsed discussions between the African operator and Reliance's rival, Bharti Airtel, in May.
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