Mixed Feelings Trail Nigeria GSM at 4

Four years after the global system took off in Nigeria Reactions about it’s blessings are still mixed. While some say it astronomically affected many aspects of Nigeria positively, From corporate life to even rural life, others say the Eldora do for Nigeria telecoms is still far as reported by Bayero Agabi.

From 1885 to 1886, when the British colonial masters set up internal telecoms for effective communication which later gave birth to Post and Telecoms and later Nitel in 1985, the average Nigerian never witnessed the kind of telephone explosion that thrilled the GSM take off in 2001. The advent of GSM eliminated the status symbol attached to telephony and the monopoly of Nitel.

Opinions:
The advent of GSM, the global system for mobile communication has actually brought a lot of positive development in almost all sectors of the economy.

Between 2001 and 2005, Nigeria recorded well over 15millions lines with tele-density now put at 1.15%. Investment flow into the sector is also put at about 15billion dollars; job creation and infrastructural development have equally enjoyed a boost.

It has facilitated a lot of things, immigration has been easy, the issue of getting across to people; it has not only boosted the economic situation in the country it has also made accessibility easy in all it’s ramification.

To many people, the cost of talking is still creating a deep hole in their pockets.
 

"The major problem we’ve always had is arbitrary increase in tariff." -A rural user

"The industry operators have formed a cartel where they sit overnight and make decisions to increase prices at the detriment of their subscribers. And one major problem we have is that we really keep wondering if the authorities are aware of all these. For instance now, call centres now make calls for as much as N30, some N35; it was not like this before."

"The NCC chairman should really talk about the tariff because the money being paid per second is still high. In other countries, in developed countries it’s not like that." -An urban user

"At times you want to recharge, you buy credit, you try the recharge severally and it doesn’t go through. In most of those cases, there are instances that there are people whose lives are at stake and they want to make calls and they are not able to do so."

"They should improve in their entire network, Global, MTN, Mtel, Vmobile, all the network." - Urban user

In addition to this headache is the failure of both the regulatory body, NCC and the GSM operators to meet certain requirements of the digital mobile license (DML). For instance, section 3, subsection1 of the NCC digital mobile license makes it mandatory for the operators to provide toll free lines to fire service, ambulances, the police and other emergency services. Section 2, subsection 1 of the same act, makes it a must for GSM operators to produce directories of their subscribers within the first year of their operations. All of these failures couples with bad business practices is giving the regulatory body a headache.

The Big Debt Question
 

"There are many companies owing huge sums of money, not only to those they purchase goods and services from but also owing interconnect charges, spectrum fees, statutory fees and so on." - Ernest Ndukwe (NCC)

"It is causing quite a lot of distress in the sector. At the moment, our estimation is like it’s about 16million or more in terms of debt, which needs to be addressed. The negative impact of this continuous debt pattern which is being born by those who are in the industry, those who I would believe have been observing good corporate governance of the industry include: constricting cash, starving operators of much needed funding to continue to roll out operations. Apart from that, it shows that there is a distress in the seventh segment in the market which will definitely negative impact on the ultimate consumers" - Ibironke Oyeronke, MTN Corporate Affairs

At present, over 25 billions naira is owed between the operators from unsettled interconnectivity bills couples with insincerity among the operators. This and network instability is giving the operators cause to worry.

 

"Today we all carry more than one mobile, not because we really want to show status but because you want to have guaranteed that at any point in time, you have a service from one of the operators." A telecom operator

"The consumer requires more in terms of quality of service, he needs bigger foot print when he travels, and that will be our endeavour." - Glomobile executive

In the first year of their operations, they had over 1million lines over the provisions of the license which provides a hundred thousand in 12 months, 150 thousand in 16months and 5% coverage of the states of the country in 36 months. However, call drops, call completion and capacity for heavy data and video usage is still a golly to cross few months to the expiration of their exclusivity license in 2006.