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Nigeria: Time to Drive Down Cost of Operations in Country - Harris

Prince Osuagwu

15 October 2008

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interview

AS Worldwide Interoperabilty for Microwave Access, WiMAX, takes the centre stage in the world communications market, companies offering the services are jostling to capture the emerging markets to advance their fortunes.

With Nigeria fast becoming the communications nerve centre of Middle East and Africa, it plays host to many service providers who plan to leverage on the population and economic strength of the country to launch stability of their products to the global market.

So when Harris Stratex, a leading independent supplier of turnkey wireless transmission solutions, indicated interest in deploying WiMAX, in the country, Hi-Tech cornered its General Manager, Mr Braun Harald and besides his views on the Nigerian ICT market, he feels time has come to drive down cost of production in the country. Excerpts:

How would you evaluate the Nigerian business environment?

I think the Nigerian market will be bigger than the North American Market, for us here at Harris Stratex, in terms of revenue. The growth rate here is absolutely fantastic. Now, there are 14 different operators - 5 GSM operators and 9 CDMA operators and 15 potential WiMAX operators. Although some have not started, the number could increase any time soon.

The initiatives from the operators are tremendous and they really like WiMAX and want to build its network. But there are so many opportunities in this country with such enterprises as Banks, Oil Companies. We would start up operations here and hire more people because we are really running out of people and also space since we are multiplying in population and our business is growing. Of course, the environment is fantastic.

Having said that, do you foresee other challenges in the Nigerian market?First, I wouldn't like to underplay the challenge of people because getting the right people with requisite skills is very critical to every enterprise.

However, every thing circles around IP - to find the right people with the right IP school certificate is very difficult. So, if you are talking about that, we have decided to reach out to some Nigerian Universities and seek partnerships and cooperation with them.

We intend to provide learning equipment, microwave equipment, mobile equipment for them; scholarships and of course, I can also provide employment opportunities for the graduating students. It will all happen here - we are investing in top talented people from Universities. Bekele will go on a trip to identify these Universities and by my next visit, we will go out there to meet the schools authorities and work with them on partnership.

I have done that already in the U.S and Asia before - I am an honorary professor of Cambodia International University. I am the chairman of the School of technology and I also give six lectures in Science and Technology every year in the school. So, this is a fantastic opportunity and we are working with big Companies to enhance the skills of University graduates and make them more useable for the industry and give students the opportunity to have corporate experience.

That is what I am seeking for the schools. There are of course, other challenges in the Nigerian market - it is a huge country and there is the need to have standard equipment. We need to make sure that we get our equipment in here on time (this is a big challenge); and also find a cost effective way of doing it.

We need to make sure that we have the right mechanism of transportation and delivery that is efficient and effective. So, lack of skillful manpower and pure resource of people are not the only challenges we are faced with here in Nigeria.

All our 14 mobile operators face the same challenges since they grow tremendously - they need people to install things, to manage equipment, to climb masts - those are the same challenges that we have. So, we compete in the market for resources. -They are critical and again, are not peculiar to the Nigerian environment because we all live on the same planet and we have to ensure that we do things in the right way.

Now, your main business here is to deploy Wimax, do you actually envisage a shift from fibre optics to WiMAX in Nigeria?

This is a very important question right here - Fibre versus Microwave! In the last 2 days, I have been asked this question four times by eight different customers.

Nigeria is a mobile country and it is very difficult and expensive to lay fibre and very easy to install mobile equipment and microwave links. We have to find out the right balance between how far fibre can go and when do operators start building towers and making microwave links. For now, Microwave is the cheapest and fastest way in a country like Nigeria, to get mobile services to the end users.

There is no doubt in my mind that it would get more popular. In other countries like the Philippines, Indonesia where there are islands, they resort to Microwave - there is no way of laying fibre. So, the shift is towards mobility. To answer your question, it is a very clear shift towards mobility and towards microwave links. And then, even in developed countries where they have a lot of fibre laid in the ground, there are lots of cuts and problems especially when the ground is dug. Microwave is not faced with such challenges and is more reliable. So, that is my own take on that.

You have admitted there are competitions, what are you going to do to beat competitors?

What we do here has nothing to do with fibre. What we would do differently here is to provide consultancy services for our customers, system designing, building and integration; life cycle management, as well as network optimization - we can do the whole end-to-end solution.

We would not just bring the box for the customers to do everything themselves but are going to provide those services non-stop with people here, locally. I was just told by a customer, "You are the only company here that has put a mechanism in place to get your equipment in and deliver services fast. We have made it very easy for our customers; they see a commitment in us and in our set-up here to make a difference and make their services and operations smooth.

"Hassle-free services," that is what I call it; that is what we do differently. Every competitor has a technology which is more or less the same; the uniqueness is somewhere else - either in the business model or service model, how do I service my product which I just brought to the market.

What are your power management and security solutions about?

Nigeria has over 16,000 base stations and they are faced with the challenges of security, power, and power is the greatest challenge for various sectors of the Nigerian economy. Our power management solution is one designed for Nigeria. For mobile security - you know that generators and diesel are being stolen from base stations.

Those miscreants actually go and empty the tanks in broad daylight. Our company is positioned to look at these problems and device means to surmount them. Every customer is going to like that because it means saving money for them. Yes, we will do that, provide security and make sure they have access to much better services.

What are the dynamics of you power solution and how affordable could it be?

First, let me state that the technology is getting better and it is about time to produce solar cells for lesser cost of operations.

You have to start doing something to drive down the cost of operations; it is about the right time of doing this as the technology has improved and is much better than it was before and alternatives like hydro cells will make it more cost effective. The business scheme shows that it is affordable and you have returns on investment within a year. This is a good one for every company worldwide. Five years ago, no way but today, much better.

For example, we have different temperatures in the country and there is the Air-conditioner that ensures that everything is working on your cell site for your generator and equipment you have in there; there is no need to have the Air-conditioner on all the time because in the night temperature drops considerably and you need not run the Air-conditioner anymore.

We run them according to the temperature of the site and switch on ventilators or even nothing, letting air circulate from the outside. Power goes off and on depending on the atmospheric temperature and in that process, 35% of diesel is saved.

Another thing is recharging the batteries - when you recharge the batteries all the time, they are all going to die; if you run too much temperatures on the batteries, they would have a shorter life cycle. Our solutions guide you on when to charge, how to charge, how to drop the temperature and other necessary actions; and in that way, they drop the power consumption at your base sites.

There will be lesser recourse to diesel and any other form of energy. The solutions are available now. There are alternative energies - in Nigeria, there is wind, sun and other things and we are having discussions with some of the operators here to consider these options. We can manage solar cells; we can manage wind. There are two continents where we are into this - Africa and North America because of the Green Initiatives, whereby countries are not using much energy and are going green in the environment.

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