Lagos — NIGERIAN telecommunications sector that is adjudged the fastest growing telecom market in the world is faced with challenges even as it tries to maintain sustainable regulatory standards for the industry.

The challenges were analysed at a Telecom Device Forum in Lagos last week organised by Communications Week, a foremost weekly Information Technology Newspaper.

Unfolding the challenges, Chairperson of the forum, Gbenga Adebayo, who doubles as the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said that the telecom sector was faced with a number of challenges, which he said, could hinder the sustenance of its growth, if the challenges were not nipped in the bud.

He listed some of the challenges as multiple regulation, government interference in telecom matters, multiple taxations, insufficient broadband rollout in the industry, security of infrastructure, quality of service, inadequate power supply, state of access roads, among others.

According to him, "ALTON strongly advocates the independence of industry regulator such that the regulator must be free from political interference. Multiple regulation is a bane of growth and government must continue to provide the right regulatory and policy environment without crisscross between various arms of government".

Adebayo called for the scrapping of all forms levies and fees charges by various agencies of government on right of way approvals, insisting that they are all inimical to a true regulatory framework in any society.

Adebayo, who spoke on manpower capacity building, explained that capacity building was critical for the sustenance of telecom development and that more effort was needed from government to ensure that the technical manpower requirements for the information and communications technology (ICT) industry were met. This, he said, was traceable to challenge in the socio-economic environment and the guaranteed minimum quality of lives and that the industry was loosing a number of highly trained personnel to other countries with less potential; countries with better social security and standard of living and economic values; countries with better healthcare, better education guarantees for their children, better security of lives and properties and quality of living, which he said, remained a major challenge for the industry.

He reiterated the fact that telecommunications in Nigeria remained the most functional and reliable public social infrastructure, while calling on stakeholders to continue to do the needful to sustain the growth and stability of the telecom sector of the economy.

In spite of the challenges, Adebayo said there were gains associated with telecommunication development in the country.

Revealing some of the gains, Adebayo said telecommunication had replaced to a large extent, the need for travels, the need for physical meetings as conferences are held over video teleconference facilities with parties located in different parts of the world.

These advantages, he said, had changed the way people live and the way they do businesses and that Nigeria was on the map of this transformation. The modern day economy, he added, cannot be sustained without commensurate development in telecommunication. He further explained that virtually all industries in the country today depended on telecommunication services in one form or the other, be it manufacturing, oil exploration, production, traffic management and control, security and surveillance systems and the banking and finance sector.

The Telecom Device Forum called for the autonomy of the telecom regulatory body, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), should government achieve its vision of becoming one of the top twenty economies by the year 2020.

According to Adebayo, "the relatively stable regulatory and policy environment have accelerated investment inflow into the sector resulting in the rapid rollout of multifarious communication services. The growth in the sector has resulted in the creation of over 12, 000 direct jobs and hundreds more are informally employed through the sector, confirming the fact that telecom is a key contributor to gross domestic product (GDP) in Nigeria."

The forum, which focused on new telecom devices, its usage and economic importance, also x-rayed all forms of electronic payment systems in the country, and their regulatory issues.

Technical papers were presented and recommendations were made on the need for a clear legal and regulatory framework for proper and safe online monetary transactions in the banking sector.

According to Dr. Chris Uwaje, regional manager for D-Link Network, "there are security implications in the nation's e-payment system, and any e-payment system without e-transaction policies and legislative policies, will expose customers to high risk." He therefore called on government and the National Assembly members to as a matter of urgency, consider various legislative Acts that are before the assembly.

"The emergence of electronic commerce has brought in its wake some major security concerns and electronic payment has dominated and attracted much attention in recent times, thus payment operators, electronic card manufacturers as well as and cardholders continue to seek for effective means of combating the threats of internet frauds and more especially credit card frauds," Uwaje said.

Highlighting the danger of practicing e-Payment without legislation, Uwaje was of the opinion that institutionalising the components of e-Commerce (e-Payment) initiative is critical to the consistency of policies and the sustenance of growth. This, he said could only be achieved through the provision of an appropriate legal framework for the regulation and growth of e-Commerce in Nigeria.

He said there were several proposed legislations that were yet to get attention. He listed them as the National Software Development ACT to establish the National Software Commission; National Software Product Procurement Accreditation Board (NSPPAB) and relevant Agencies; Electronic Commerce and Digital Transaction and Digital Signature Act to regulate electronic commerce and digital transactions; Digital Copyrights and Cyber-Regulation Act to protect digital copyrights and regulate cyber activities; Software Standards Act to regulate software standards, performance and security, among other proposals.

Barrister Wale Jones, a telecom lawyer who also presented paper at the forum, decried the lack of legal framework that was supposed to govern online transaction in cyberspace.

According to him, "there are lots of benefits in e-payment system, but Nigerians are unaware of them because of the low level of awareness on information about e-payment system in the country."

President of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, thanked Communications Week, the convener of the forum, for the timeliness of the forum and its theme, "Nigeria Telecom Industry: Fueling The Future of e-Payment System in Nigeria. He urged Nigerians to watch out for modern telecom devices and make better use of them to shape their businesses and lifestyles.