By Prince Osuagwu
On a rough estimate, Nigerian subscribers may have spent well over
N31.02bn on dropped and unconnected calls since January last year, owing
to poor quality of services from the telecom operators. Most networks
in the country claim to have upgraded their network to 3G and 4G that
never deliver services. Nigerians using ipad are worse off as downloads
are so frustrating that in a day, a subscriber may not be able to
connect or download music or video.
This figure of N31.02 billion was roughly estimated from the Average
Revenue Per User, ARPU spending of 102.3 million subscribers (as at June
last year) which amounted to about N103.4 bn, in relation to an opinion
poll conducted by this reporter which saw many subscribers claiming
that 30 per cent of their call costs were wasted.
From major part of last year, mostly during the yuletide period and
even till now, telecom subscribers in the country have had to resort to
hanging on the trees and roof tops to complete their calls. The only
time this was the case was at the early stage of GSM operation in
Nigeria in 2001 when the networks were just building. Then, in addition
to hanging on the trees, Nigerians resorted to high antennas to receive
strong signals and incidentally, many buildings and other structures
were dotted with embarrassing poles, antennas that did not beautify the
Nigerian air space.
The situation compelled the operators into making massive investments
in network and backbone infrastructure that launched the country into
the top spot of African telecom market and spiralled into branding
Nigeria as one of the fastest emerging markets in the world.
Although the quality of service after the investments cannot be
described as perfect, subscribers lament that call completion has never
been as bad.
30 per cent call costs wasted?
Although the operators have given both human and natural causes of the
problem, the reality is that subscribers are still at the receiving end,
spending hard earned money on calls that did not deliver value. In
fact, it is believed that over 30 per cent of call costs in recent times
are wasted in either dropped calls or entirely unconnected calls.
Nigerian subscribers, according to the Nigerian Communications
Commission, NCC, hit 102.3 million mark as at June last year, with an
Average Revenue Per User, ARPU, of N1.011 and spent about N103.4 bn in
call cost within that period.
If 30 per cent of this is wasted, like many subscribers have alleged,
that means that about N31.02b was wasted on calls that did not connect
or deliver value.
No respite in sight
Meanwhile, the situation may still linger as both the operators and the
regulator are trading blames and spoiling for war against each other.
Late last year, the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Mr Tony Ojobo had
declared that the operators may be sanctioned this quarter over poor
services if the Key Performance Indicator, KPI, which the commission put
in place, indicated that their services were still poor.
Ojobo had said that the regulator would not fold its arms and watch
millions of Nigerians who depend on the services of the operators to
communicate to loved ones, friends and business associates to suffer
losses due to poor telecommunications services, adding that operators
should either shape up or face the hammers of the regulator.
According to him, “we will, however, take into account all those
times the operators suffered disasters that were no fault of theirs. We
know that there were times the operators suffered natural disasters but
if the KPI says they had performed below par before those times, we will
penalise them and I don’t think they should have any quarrel about that
because the KPI is an agreement we made with them.”
But in a swift reaction, Chairman of the Association of Licensed
Telecom Operators of Nigeria, ALTON, Engr. Gbenga Adebayo said that the
operators would employ every legal means to resist any penalty from the
regulator which did not take into account the spate of attacks and
vandalisation the operators have suffered.
According to Adebayo, from wilful damages to vandalisation, flood and
bomb attacks, the operators have been at the receiving end and on each
occasion, they would be left to lick their wounds.
Adebayo said that although the damages on the operators’ facilities
could not be quantified on the immediate, it, however, ran into hundreds
of millions of dollars.
“Key performance indicators or not, I don’t think that the government
would be fair to talk about sanctions now. Everybody is aware of the
problems we have been facing, including the recent bomb attacks on our
facilities. I think that the government should even be talking of giving
us some form of compensation to help us recoup.
“We are not talking of cash compensation, rather some form of tax or
import waiver to enable us import back some of these facilities which
actually run into several hundreds of millions of dollars to replace.
But in any case, we will employ every legal means to resist any penalty
we deem as unfair to us by the government,” he added.
Where are the investments on new tech?
The irony of the whole situation is that these are happening despite
recent announcements by almost all the mobile telecommunications
operators in Nigeria that they have embarked on massive investments on
their networks.
Subscribers have had to contend with teeth-gritting call completion
rates and fluctuating network stability on their mobile phones in recent
months. These, notwithstanding the millions of dollars the operators
say they are expending on upgrading their networks to energy efficient
and environment-friendly solutions.
For instance, MTN in June, announced a major development in its
network expansion programme when it told journalists that it had began a
comprehensive network overhaul that would gulp about $1.3bn,
approximately N204bn.
MTN tagged the exercise, network modernisation and swap out exercise,
meaning that old legacy equipment it started business with, 10 years
ago , would be phased out for a more recent and hybrid ones.
In fact, the company’s Corporate Services Executive, Mr. Wale
Goodluck, who announced the development with his team including Chief
Technical Officer, Mrs Lynda Saint-Nwafor and General Manager, Corporate
Communications, Mrs Funmi Omogbenigun, among others, said the aim of
the exercise was to increase capacity and improve services to its over
45 million subscribers.
He even promised that MTN‘s radio and transmission infrastructure as
well as the core network would be fully optimised, adding that major
cities, such as Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, Kano and Aba would be given
special attention.
However, Goodluck did give the hint that there may be some technical
hitches which may disrupt the network quality due to the exercise, but
pleaded that customers bear with the situation for the gains that would
accrue at the end of the exercise.
He also assured that part of the massive project involving three
technical partners, Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE, would be carried out at
night to minimise impact on the quality of service.
Just about that time, Airtel Nigeria had also announced investment of
over $600m in just one year to expand the capacity and enhance the
robustness of its network in pursuit of world class Quality of Service.
At the launch of the company’s Green Site in Lekki, Lagos, the
company’s Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, Mr. Deepak
Srivastava, hinted journalists that Airtel had entered into a landmark
deal with Ericsson to upgrade 250 diesel-powered stations in Nigeria to
Green-sites, adding that it was all to enable the company harness solar
energy to operate its base stations.
According to him, the Green sites will contribute to a considerable
reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and prevent network outages
associated with inconsistent power supply.
Srivastava regretted that non-availability of regular grid power
supply to sites across the country was responsible for over 70 per cent
of down time resulting in poor QoS, adding that the Greensite would go a
long way in addressing this critical challenge.
Meanwhile, Globacom and Etisalat also had a fair share of network optimisation to achieve better performance.
In addition to the mega bucks Glo1 submarine cable investment,
Globacom also, shelled out early this year, a whopping $6m to contract
wireless backhaul giants, Ceragon, to manage the end-to-end deployment
of its Fibre air IP-10 and IP Evolution long haul systems across
Nigeria.
Etisalat Nigeria also announced a deal with Aviat Networks which
charged Aviat to specifically establish a Network Operations Center
(NOC) to operate 50 hops of Etisalat’s Enterprise Data Network,
comprising 100 radios of the Eclipse Packet Node microwave networking
solution, on its network nationwide.
In addition, the company will implement its element management system
(EMS), for total network surveillance, fault escalation and reporting
with up to six months of performance data stored for analysis; and quick
replacement of mission-critical components in the field.
This was in addition to the already existing two-year managed
services contract with Alcatel-Lucent covering the South-West of the
country including Lagos, which is due to expire in May 2013.
Promos take a toll
However, just about when these investments were making meaning to the
subscribers, almost all the subscribers also introduced grand campaigns
and tempting customer-related promotions to get more customers onto
their networks.
MTN came up with a pocket of promos including the Ultimate Wonder
promo which promised to give one lucky MTN subscriber, an aeroplane.
Airtel debuted with the Airtel 2Good series among others prospected to
give subscribers cheaper tariff. Etisalat and Glo were not also left out
as they introduced many. But the NCC said that as good as these
promotions were, the untold effects on the networks culminated in the
collapse that gave subscribers anguish.
On November 8, 2012, the regulator banned all telecom- related promos, saying it was to save subscribers from further anguish.
Subscribers still lament
However, two months after, subscribers still lament that unless they
climbed to the roof of high rise buildings or tree tops, getting better
services were almost impossible. An angry subscriber, who simply
introduced herself as Ms. Clara Nduka told this reporter, “I don’t know
how my operator manages to do it, but whenever I load air time on my
phone, it disappears even without making a single call.
Also, I am regularly over- billed to the extent that I once made a
call that finally dropped at 3 seconds but I was billed N15 for it. I
think these are outrageous practices. The most annoying aspect is that
when I complained, the customer service of my operator said it was
because I never had a plan for my iPhone. Whatever that means, I don’t
know but I have just resorted to loading N100 or N200 units only,
whenever I need to make a call. It is as embarrassing as that,” she
added.
Also, a Lagos State University, LASU, student, Kenneth Okpebho,
described network congestion in Nigeria as a ‘culture’ adding that the
best way to overcome it was to live with it.
“I have learnt to live with the network congestion because that is
the only way to overcome it. You can’t imagine the heartache, when you
need to get to your parents over demanding issues in school and you are
stuck with a piece of metal in your hand instead of a mobile phone
because no matter how hard you try, you hardly get through. Even in
those rare times you get through, you will never get your father or
mother to understand what you are saying because the line boils like hot
water. It has become a culture here in school and we have learned to
live with it.”
The situation is even biting hard on recharge card dealers who are
complaining bitterly that something must be done quickly before they go
out of business. Some of them complained that recharge card business
was no longer attractive as many people refuse to patronise them.
Vanguard
