How did we totally
lose our way?
Indeed is
the question! But I did not ask the
question.
It is one articulated by Ms Funke Opeke, CEO
of MainOne Cable Company in a Guests’
Comment Register at the breakfast meeting by
CEO members of ATCON for Engr Victor
Haffner’s 92nd birthday last September.
Therein, she wrote:
‘Very informative about the history of
accomplishment that previously existed in
the telecoms sector in the country. How did
we totally loose the way?’.
Most people of reasonable intellect let
alone someone of such prominence in the
industry will be left scratching their heads
how, in a relative short period, things have
degenerated so far and so fast. Funke Opeke,
along with others, must have listened with
sheer incredulity when she heard me say in a
welcome address that less than 50 years ago,
in 1963 precisely, the first telecom company
in Nigeria provided the needed communication
resources for the inaugural satellite launch
by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, USA) into space from the
Lagos Marina, back to Goddard Space Flight
centre in USA; and that some 10 years later,
Engr Haffner and his team of Nigerians who
provided the resources also conceived the
NECOM House, the pioneering architectural
feat of a rotating restaurant at the summit
of a functional telecom building designed to
be 37 levels above the ground floor.
For answers, a semblance of understanding or
some comparative analysis, I put the
question ‘How did we totally loose the way?’
to Google Search but that venture yielded
nothing.
But to pretend to be ignorant of the root
causes of this degeneration is simply
burying one’s head in the sand. The issue is
whether one wants to found solutions or meet
the problem(s) with the customary shrug of
despondency.
The few people who write our history depict
different era by those who have had the
misfortune to rule us hence we chart our
historical chart by the ‘Obasanjo’s regime’,
‘Shagari’s era’, ‘Gowon’s days’, Abacha’s
period, Babangida’s time, Obasanjo’s second
time second term, etc.
The difference between those heady days when
Mr. Haffner worked and today is that back
then, the states were not going to Federal
Government routinely with a begging bowl to
collect dues but rather, through ingenuous
means, they generated revenue and
contributed agreed sums to the central
Government. This ‘funnel like’ system was
effective and its reversal put the gearstick
of progress in reverse. To understand the
moment that precipitated this regression, we
need to go back – as far back as 1966.
The fellow who had the misfortune of
implementing that retrogressive decision, is
no other than the distinguished
elder-statesman and prayer-warrior, General
Yakubu Gowon (rtd.), who will have us
believe that the only solution he thinks can
be employed to solve our problems is
‘prayer’.
If the only solution that the distinguished
elder statesman can offer in the face of a
multitude of problems is prayer then we
should ask him to look at the issue more
closely. One can say with a level of
certainty that that solution does not work
as I can think of no people that pray more
than Nigerians. The share number of
billionaires we have produced through prayer
empires attest to this. I also can think of
no more morally bereft set of people than
these people who package hopelessness and
sell it to our people as hope. This is
because if prayer is the thing, it is a
deferral to a superior being for the
manifestation of the good decisions that we
take to protect ourselves given all the
intellect the Almighty has endowed us with.
It is difficult to rely solely on prayer
when we deliberately depart from the
original and efficient position where the
states were self- sufficient and truly
confederal. Is it difficult to know that?
A President goes to church routinely to make
pronouncements on affairs of state and to
give more impression of hopelessness than
hope. What signal is that capable of sending
to infantile minds of religion fanaticism?
What really is leadership about, if we may
ask? Wearing different national dresses?
And to imagine that those young ‘brilliant
economists’ (economic team indeed!) who
surround to impress on him that economic
indices are more important and more
respectable than the wishes and true
feelings of Nigerians. And that our economy
regarding fuel consumption is being
threatened by small countries who share
border with us and whose total population,
consumption, and corruption quotient are
only very insignificant fraction of
Nigeria’s.
A newspaper revealed that the 37-Story NECOM
House which Mr. Haffner conceived and
constructed when he was 44 years old had
actually been converted by a top official of
today ( also in his forties) to augment his
family harem of loots. And for a fee of
N4billion. And nobody exists to tell us what
has happened to the obscene purchase of our
commonwealth? How many subsidies will
Nigerians have to get removed to save
themselves from today's leaders.
The good story is that Nigerians now appear
united to say No to all this nonsense.
What I find more galling is that no one sees
it fit to challenge the respected General
Gowon or indeed the success factor of his
panacea. To be brutally honest I don’t think
even he actually believes in the
sacrosanctity of prayer and perhaps, just
perhaps, a lack of leadership, aspiration
and will might have something to do with the
prevailing situation.
Our failure to challenge orthodoxy cripples
us. For our best moments come from
discomfort and dissatisfaction because in
those moments we are propelled to step out
of what rubbish we are standing in and
search for better solutions. A lack of
aspiration means we are unable to truly
judge a system either by its operations or
manifestation.
Quite frankly we do not need an Army General
to tell us what has gone wrong or how to
solve them, we simply need anyone who works
like a General – essentially a courageous
leader.
Titi Omo-Ettu, FNSE
Abuja
Press Release on
January 16, 2012
Published in CyberschuulNews Edition 453,
January 16, 2012
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‘We need to
rally round Minister to deliver on mandate’
- Titi Omo-Ettu
.........taken from
eWorld, Volume 7, September 2011 Edition
The President of Association of
Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria
(ATCON) Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu in his
reaction to the new Minister of
Communication Technology’s mandate as
she recently unveiled called on the
industry to rally around her to ensure
that she succeeds in the task ahead.
What is your take on the appointment of
the new Minister of Communications
Technology?
To the extent that Government has realised
the need for a restructuring of our industry
and responded, I think the creation of the
Ministry of Communications Technology is
good for our industry. My attention is more
on the Ministry, not on the Minister if I
must clarify. If by appointment you mean the
pedigree of the new Minister, I think it is
very good. She strikes me as cerebral and
intellectually ready. And from what I have
read in the media about her first outing
with news people, it seems she has hit the
ground running. I read that she has done a
few things in the short time she has been in
office. I would not have asked for more.
Did the appointment meet your
Association's expectation?
As industry players, Government appointment
needs not satisfy us. It only needs to be
good. It behoves us to assist government to
make our industry strive and progress in the
belief that government has chosen who it
thinks can deliver its mandate to the
people. In this particular case the
appointment is good because someone who
knows the subject has been appointed and the
remaining is for us to work with her. My
take is that our attitude of having mindsets
and thinking government must only be right
if it does our mindset needs a fine-tuning.
What do you think the new Ministry and
minister should concentrate on to move the
industry and the country forward?
From what I read in the media recently she
has articulated them, and very nicely too.
She might not have used the popular words we
are familiar with, but that is what makes
her intellectually ready and compliant. A
Minister needs not be a conformist or an
activist. He is more of a politician. If he
is a politician that knows the subject and
compliant, we say it is a round peg in a
round hole and that is the best model but by
no means the only model.
The minister recently said she would
focus mainly on access and use ICT to
enhance productivity. How would you score
her focus?
Excellent If that is what she said. What
better thing would a Minister of
Communications Technology have said? Our
attitude is to hold her to that mandate and
help her to succeed so that we can succeed
and our industry and our investments can
flourish. We would be wrong to be putting a
Minister on a scale and dissecting her every
word to pick holes when we should be
spending time supporting her to take us to
the place we have prescribed for our
industry. Let me tell you this, it was not a
particular government that took our industry
to where it is, it is the attitude of
players in the industry who adopted the
‘must work’ attitude.
Both NITDA, NCC will still operate
separately in the new structure. NBC will be
under the Information Ministry and not under
Communication Technology. What is your take
on this structure in the era of convergence?
It is not exactly as we had canvassed. That
should not be a headache for us to move on.
It is no different from the situation we had
in 1992 when an NCC (Nigerian Communications
Commission) was established in response for
our request for an NTRA (Nigerian
Telecommunications Regulation Authority).
But we accepted it and made it work for us.
We kept fine tuning it until we got a fine
Act in 2003. We are already asking for a
further fine-tuning now if you listen to us
very well.
From media reports I noticed that the
Minister has identified the divergence of
the current scenario from the popular
expectation and she has prescribed how she
would work to achieve the common good even
in spite of the imbalances in expectations
and reality. What else can we be asking for!
It seems that in totality, you are
satisfied.
To be satisfied is to drop dead. My take is
that I call for a cling to the attitude of
making things work rather than finding
reasons why they do not work and spend our
time quarrelling. I am saying that we should
be less stereotyped and more pragmatic and
embrace change with a view to managing it
rather than fighting ourselves over it. In
my 38 years of practice in the industry, we
have had over 20 Ministers and Ministers of
State and only about 7 of them have been
cerebral, and compliant in my estimation.
But we have worked with them and it has been
better for our industry. It is that
‘must-work’ attitude that I will ask my
members and colleagues to let us continue to
adopt. Ministers usually come and go but we,
you and I, and our investments remain.
If you want to know what my fears are, I
will tell you.
Please tell me.
Public Electricity system!
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Auction NITEL’s FNO licence'
Written by KUNLE AZEEZ
, ICT Reporter NATIONAL MIRROR, 22/09/2011
President, Association of Telecoms Companies
of Nigeria, Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu in this
interview with KUNLE AZEEZ, speaks on the
impact of the liberalisation of the
telecommunications sector and submits that
the failure to privatise the First national
carrier, NITEL, has cast a pall on the
successes recorded in the sector in the last
10 years. Excerpts:
Taking a look at 2001 when digital mobile
licences were issued to investors in Nigeria
, what will be your assessment of the
nation?’s telecommunications industry as a
whole, especially in terms of the impact on
the way Nigerian live, work and do business?
Let us shift emphasis from repeating
ourselves like a damaged record by not
reeling the figures of telephone lines then
and now and look at more significant aspects
of the transformation.
Truth really is that the mobile phone
breakthrough was a development whose time
came not for Nigeria alone but for the
entire world and the good story was that the
Nigerian system did not prevent it from
flourishing by way of building the local
telecommunications industry on it.
But then the same folks who allowed a leap
in growing mobile telephony, in another
breadth, destroyed the major task of
building a First National Operator
infrastructure through which we would have
built a sustainable development beyond the
mere growth of telephone lines.
So we should identify the entire issue of
liberalisation of the telecom industry as
the success story to focus on especially as
it has taken a tragically lost battle to
replicate what was done in telecom sector in
the energy sector which, if you ask me,
equally if not more needs such expansion.
Liberalisation has presented itself and
shown to be a good platform on which to
build the economy and the failure of our
energy sector managers to embrace it has
resulted in stagnation of our economy in the
real sense. The blatant failure to truly
liberalise the energy sector has even
commenced to challenge the strides made in
telecommunications sector.
There has always been confusion in terms of
the actual teledensity growth in Nigeria. We
are told that there are presently 90.8
million mobile phone subscribers, yet we
know that many people have two or more
lines. Are these figures terribly
exaggerated? What would be the realistic
figures in your opinion concerning actual
subscribers in the country?
To the extent that one way of posturing our
attainment in the business of telephone
service is to play up number of lines, there
is a basis to admit to a suggestion that
there might have been a good measure of
exaggeration.
We like to celebrate success in
telecommunications to corner market share
and that leaves room for an overplay of
figures. I do not like to make guesses. I
believe we should carry out a true count and
publish true figures so we do not use an
error to correct a bad error.
Do you think there are some regulatory
issues affecting better expansion of
telecoms networks and what are these
challenges and who they can be addressed?
Naturally our process could not have been
fault proof since it is a human system but
the fact that we have done very well in
regulation shows that the pluses have been
more than the minuses. Of course there were
many things which remain undone just as
there were many that we did wrongly. The
major wrong is failure to privatise NITEL or
at least to keep it alive even if we would
not privatise it.
But to discuss that subject is one mass of
lengthy interview which we should not permit
within this short one.
Another is our inability to make the Second
National Operator concentrate on nationwide
fibre infrastructure at the time we gave it
a salad of licenses when indeed we had seen
the traces of a monumental failure in the
privatisation process of the First National
Operator. Those two errors might have
presented the pain in the neck of Nigerians
in what eventually became a high cost for a
poor service.
How would you assess the contribution of
telecoms to the growth of the Nigerian
economic development, especially in the area
of contribution to the Gross Domestic
Product and can we actually take the
contribution for granted?
It has been significant of course. I do not
know figures and I am not used to playing
with economic indices because they are mere
statistics which anybody can use to prove
whatever standpoint he takes on a matter. I
want to leave economic indices to economists
to play with.
Are you worried about the continually
aborted privatisation process of NITEL? And
in your opinion, what do you recommend as
actions that must be taken towards making
the First National Carrier economically
viable in complementing the gains of
liberalisation in telecoms sector?
I am not only worried, I am bitter. I am
concerned from all angles and my bitterness
has to be natural and understandable. I
opted out of my service in NITEL to pursue a
career in co-championing liberalisation of
the telecoms industry. Part of the agenda
was to canvas for the eventual privatisation
of NITEL only after a liberalisation of the
industry had become stable.
But due to vicissitudes of the march in
liberalisation, we fast forwarded the
privatisation of NITEL and ended up stalling
it, loosing largely to the evil effects of
bad temperament, incompetence and high level
of corruption of our officials. With the
collapse of NITEL went my deserved pension
career for which the system inflicted severe
injury on my well-being and also made
Nigerians witness a high cost of service
which is traceable to the failure to make
NITEL live and ultimately ended up in a
dipped quality of public telephone service.
With that summary, bitterness in my
subconscious is justified. Isn?’t it?
Strangely I have no emotional attachment to
the name NITEL and I already have a take on
its pathway. Auction the FNO license it is
holding and rest the business. Mark you I am
being technical here. I did not say sell
NITEL anyhow. I said auction the FNO license
it is holding.
The quality of service has been a major
issue, in spite of the sector’s growth and
investment by operators in the telecoms
sector, why do you think we still have
quality of service as an issue and how best
can we tackle this issue?
I do not know exactly the reasons why things
are the way they are. I am a believer in
carrying out technical studies to find out
problems so we can apply correct solutions.
I do not like participating in making
intelligent guesses of what problems are or
what they could be. I can tell you a
thousand and one things that may cause the
present impasse but the truth is that it is
only one of them that may just be correct.
In recent times, some international fibre
optic cables have landed in Nigeria with a
promise to drive affordable broadband access
in the country but industry observers have
said their capacity is concentrated in
Lagos. What will you chart as a path for
connecting more Nigerians to broadband
services whether data and voice?
Yes, we said such investments drive down
cost but we never said it is done in one
day. We also did not say that the mere
emergence of fibre from the international
route connection was panacea to solving all
the problems. Yes, they have kick-started a
process which we have also commenced to
implement. There is hope and we are on top
of it.
Some telecoms companies have gone under in
recent time with a few emerging as dominant
players. Do you suspect consolidation among
the smaller operators and what is your
position on call for bailout for smaller
telecoms operators?
I do not believe in consolidation ?‘among
smaller players ?’ but consolidation among
players generally. Consolidation makes sense
to me when a player that is being managed
very well merges with or absorbs another
player whether it is big, medium or small.
Of course some players will kick the bucket
naturally and the system will keep adjusting
itself.
In the last 10 years of GSM, do you think
cost of telecoms is still high compared to
what obtains in other countries?
No, I will not say so. Comparing prices
between two markets is generally a case of
comparing bananas with apples as no two
markets ever have similar operating
conditions and currency strengths. I do not
engage in such comparison as a matter of
personal take. As an engineer I will not do
it. I will listen to an economist if he does
it.
In spite of the huge investments in the
telecommunications sector, Nigeria has
remained a consuming nation for almost all
telecoms devices including mobile phones and
software. Don’t you think it is time we
begin to see how we can drive local content
development in telecoms sector?
My take is that we can drive local content
only in so far as the content is
intellectual.
We cannot if it is infrastructural because
everything about infrastructure tags on the
buoyancy of public electricity, which is an
area that we have recorded zero quality of
service and we are not seeing any sign of it
abating. If anything, the immediate future
looks bleak in my estimation.
taken from http://nationalmirroronline.net/business/infotech/21207.html
under slightly modified title
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Omo-Ettu
fingers corruption as the major undoing of
NITEL's privatisation process
by Emma Okonji, Head,
IT. Telecom, DAILY INDEPENDENT; March 1,
2011
Taken from
http://independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=29632
In
2008, the current President of the
Association of Telecom Companies of
Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Titi Omo-Ettu
valued NITEL at $2.2 billion. In 2010,
New Generation Telecoms won NITEL’s bid
with an offer to pay $2.5 billion. In
2011, a year after, New Generation is
unable to pay the $2.5bn, confirming the
fears of Nigerians that no operator
could pay so much for NITEL, following
the dilapidating condition of its
infrastructure. In this interview with
Daily Independent, Omo-Ettu gave insight
into the challenges facing NITEL and the
reason for its unending privatisation
process.
Emma Okonji presents his views. Excerpts
Why do you think the privatisation of
NITEL failed to fly?
The reasons have been changing. That is to
say they are many. The first problem was the
temperament of those who were put in charge
of its privatisation in the initial stages.
I believe they had inappropriate temperament
in the sense that they presented a mindset
of privatisation being warfare. How do you
ask a folk to sell a product and his method
was to assume it is war and to keep saying
the product he had to sell was a bad
product? He met all concerned with a mindset
that they would do battle with him.
Unfortunately (for him), almost everybody,
even labour was well-disposed to
privatisation of NITEL. In such a situation,
there could only be the implementation by a
troubled mind fighting itself. What do you
expect?
Next was the fact that the Bureau for Public
Enterprises (BPE) ran an agenda of
privatising all enterprises under virtually
similar, if not the same, conditions. Of
course you know a hotel is different from a
cement company, which is different from a
telecommunications operating company. When
you assume that the same rules should apply
uniformly to all of them, something must
give.
Then as some of us tried to contest the
BPE’s presentation at that time, there was
nothing valuable in NITEL we did not know
that we were making senior government
officials to develop interest in desiring
NITEL to be sold to themselves. By the time
we knew it, there was nothing we could do
and corruption became the major waterloo of
the process. Of course you know the story of
how Transcorp emerged to succeed Pentascope
and so on and so on. The sum total of the
reasons is that it is mainly due to
corruption which we underestimated.
But it is also necessary we go into how the
founding fathers of the idea of privatising
NITEL fathomed it and relate it to the
present situation. They actually prescribed
the privatisation of NITEL only after a
liberalised telecom industry might have been
achieved and the industry stabilised. So
when liberalisation came into effect in 1993
with the establishment of NCC and the Board
of NCC was disbanded in 1994, the issue of
privatisation of NITEL was deliberately left
unpursued. In fact, the kind of management
that NITEL had from 1994 to 1999 did not
encourage serious work on the agenda. But
when the military vacated and a civilian
government took over in 1999, we thought it
was time to combine both a practical
commencement of true liberalisation and also
privatisation of NITEL. And the government
then was a listening one.
What is the worth of NITEL now?
The worth of NITEL is an aggregate of the
worth of the First National Operator Licence
it is holding and a component of assets and
liabilities which are figures that have to
be computed by technical minds. The first
has not changed very significantly while the
other has run almost to zero. In 2008, we,
in a private exercise, evaluated it at $2.2
billion for 100 percent sale.
Today, we have to go through a gamut of
calculations to obtain a value, but I am
certain it will not be less that $1.8
billion. The major changes that count since
2008 and now were the coming of Etisalat and
the two submarine fibres, MainOne and Glo1.
These are the things that count. They will
cause some depreciation, but not
significantly as to make it worthless. A
First National Operator Licence is a huge
asset for those who can use it to good
effect.
What substantial errors must have been
made in the process?
Many errors were made. Of course our
knowledge is limited and we are not God
Almighty who is infallible. Forget about the
average Nigerian who does not want to
believe he ever makes mistakes. Ask the
average Nigerian official or big man about
his regrets. He will tell you he has no
regrets and that if he comes to the world
again, he will do the same things he did
under the same circumstances. We always try
to play God even when the facts show us to
have got things wrong.
For me, we made quite a lot of mistakes.
What were some of these mistakes?
Let’s start from those of us who were the
proponents of liberalisation from 1987 till
date. We underestimated the magnitude and
effect of corruption in our system and
allowed ourselves to be deliberately
misunderstood and manoeuvered at various
times by corrupt government officials.
Secondly, it was an error of judgment that
BPE denied NITEL to make investments in
expanding its infrastructure when
privatisation was about to commence in 2000.
Ask them, they will tell you if they come to
the world again, they will still do what
they did. They were like playing God. It was
a bad judgment. But we really did not
contest it with them because for us, we even
wanted the liberalised industry to stabilise
before bringing up privatisation. So if by
so doing, they delayed privatisation, we did
not see it as dangerous to the process. We
were wrong! They were not only to delay, but
to derail it.
The engagement of Pentascope is unpardonable
error. Again, we did not contest it with
them because we in our naivety, thought they
meant well. Ask them today, they will still
tell you they regret nothing. Even after
making Nigerians suffer high cost and bad
service for so long a time.
What can we get from it now?
What we can get from NITEL is what it has
always been – the First National Operator (FNO)
Licence. That is the value. NITEL as a brand
will no longer fly and whoever buys the
licence, if under appropriate conditions,
must not do any other thing than to use it
as First National Operator, FNO. An FNO
licence is huge and it has nothing to do
with assets and liabilities of the company
called NITEL. Its value is good; it may have
depreciated slightly, but not yet heavily.
Mark you, the Second National Operator, SNO,
has not done the great things we expected of
it. So, NITEL’s FNO is still relevant. Very
much relevant, I say.
What is the way forward?
The way forward is to sell the FNO licence
provided it must be executed as First
National Operator and nothing else. We
should not be thinking that NITEL still
exists except in law and on paper, but the
FNO licence which it is holding and wasting
is the key value that should make meaning to
us. Whoever buys the Licence will re-brand
the FNO and set at business. Hopefully, BPE
would have set the conditions which must not
be flouted.
What are these conditions?
You may as well ask me to do free work for
BPE.
Some people have suggested 4 options to
government
and they even say NITEL should be unbundled.
What is your take on this?
I do not like to participate in such
theorisations for two reasons. One, those
who say so are indirectly ridiculing the
competence of BPE. Certainly, all the things
they say are normal transactional positions
which BPE would have considered and what
should be happening is that they implement
the process as planned. But when BPE acts as
if it is perpetually confused, it makes
people theorise needlessly. The second point
is that many people always forget that NITEL
is our First National Operator and that is a
definition which does not permit for
unbundling except it stops being one. For
example, people mistake Mtel as something
that is more than a mere Mobile-GSM licence.
They also forget that SAT-3 has run and
completed its race. They keep thinking that
NITEL is similar to a hotel that is put on
sale.
Why do you think the New Generation
Consortium did not pay up?
I do not know those who constitute the New
Generation Consortium and between you and I,
I have never cared to know. I stopped
putting NITEL’s affairs in my mind since
2009 and I no longer look critically into
the issues. That is because I have come to
the conclusion that all there is to do is to
sell the licence and I think I have said
that clear and loud and whoever has not
heard me is either deaf or does not want to
hear.
This interview is
culled from
http://independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx?id=29632
Harnessing the Potential of the Internet
and Applications on Mobile Devices
An Opening Address
by
Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu
President Association of Telecommunication
Companies of Nigeria at the
Mobile Web West Africa Conference, Lagos on
February 2, 2011
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
This is a unique gathering and one which I
feel privileged to address.
It is a gathering assembled by a guy who, my
investigations reveal, is fast becoming a
‘young veteran’ in the business of putting
people together to discuss. I ran into some
colleagues who were at the South African
edition of Mobile Web Africa and they told
me it was excellent. Having been in close
communication with Mr. Matthew Dawes in the
past few weeks I am not surprised at the
success that attended his past efforts.
It is also a honour for me to welcome you
all to Nigeria because it very much
epitomises the development and reach of our
industry. Certainly, a market has to qualify
to be ready for this kind of gathering and
to take on the kind of subjects that are
listed for discussion in the next two days.
All Amber is one company whose effort in
this regard is considered fitting for these
times and it is very well appreciated by our
Association.
Our Association is also happy to align with
this conference because efforts of this
nature bring young entrepreneurs together to
meet the established players, to stimulate
interaction between them, to instigate a
more rapid spread of mobile web applications
and services and a plethora of opportunities
and benefits that exist for the entire
eco-system.
We have begun to see the mobile phone, in
particular, as a device for change, a tool
for closing the digital divide, an ultimate
closer of the gap between the rich and the
poor, and between the rural and the urban. I
want to hope that delegates at this
conference will see the need to include in
the discussion agenda the role of
legislation, regulation, and the link
between government and the private sector.
That interests us as an emerging market that
is in a hurry to catch up.
Building the rapidly expanding mobile system
to generate more business makes good sense.
Yes, millions of SIM cards exist in the
market and are supposed to be doing quite a
lot beyond voice. Content creation is key
and I am particularly concerned about how
much of this can be locally targeted and
locally produced.
Our Association is not only concerned about
some issues but we are in a hurry about
attaining set levels about them. These
include attainment of more generic and
stipulated levels of service and
proliferation which will be brought about by
a deeper understanding of our problems and
how to solve them. Also up on the cards are
areas of increasing productivity among young
people, growing competition that handles
antitrust effectively, regulating
independently and fairly, understanding and
getting ready to manage the frequency
spectrum optimally, and of course growing
mobile systems for optimum application.
For those who live in the developed
economies, mobile telephony has surpassed
its raison d'etre of information exchange
between peoples and seamlessly moved into
the socio-political realm of politics and
consumption. With the unrest raging across
the Northern African countries, it is
irrefutable that mobile telephony is driving
the mobilization and emancipation of people
against many tyrannical state machines.
2. The Industry and its opportunities:
To many, industry associations carry on like
clubs for people who have known one another
for some long time. ATCON, and its present
thinking and to deliver its mandate, will
leverage the passion of the young and the
wisdom of the old – and the expertise of all
– towards building an industry that won’t
only command better economic attention but
one that will add to the socio-economic
growth that Nigeria so desperately needs.
Mobile Network Operators in many markets are
known to be making huge amounts of revenues
and profits from voice and text. However as
competition, penetration and innovation
increases these will hit a plateau and the
new area of profitability will be data
usage. This is happening already – some
experts are describing it as an explosion. I
am told that at the weekends in South
Africa, 60% of Google searches are made on a
mobile telephone. For Operators to take full
advantage of this they need to have content
and services for their consumers to use.
This is why the entire ecosystem needs to
work together to enhance the development of
the mobile web and applications.
Mobile advertising is a case in point – this
is single biggest opportunity to monetise
the mobile web and applications. Mobile
marketing has created a new medium for
advertisers – an entirely new way for them
to reach out to and connect to consumers.
Indeed, some experts consider it to be the
superior way of marketing their products.
3. Content: More Content
While telecommunications was a neatly
defined word few years ago, so much has
happened in terms of interdisciplinary
shifts that when we now speak of a mobile
sector, we do not speak only of telecoms –
but also of other elements of its
application in life, business,
entertainment, and even governance. For
example, many telcos will soon realise that
providing a number is only the beginning,
and that value added services will decide
who is king. The announcement by NCC that
number portability will take effect this
year also adds credence to this thought.
As we speak, a lot of viewed content is
imported into Africa because it is so much
cheaper to do so than to produce African
content. The end result of that can only be
negative – loss of culture, language and
people engaging content that isn’t directly
relevant to them. In terms of the mobile web
and applications this is a great opportunity
to react early. People want local, relevant
information – it is important this is
produced, and there are a plethora of
reasons why. That is why it is important to
take this opportunity to boost the local
mobile ecosystem so that companies can start
producing content for the local market.
This is an opportunity to reach Nigerian
mobile subscribers with Nigerian created
information and services. Sports, News,
Jobs, Education, Music, Film, Democracy,
Finance, Social Development, Commerce – are
all areas where content and services can and
need to be produced.
4. Capacity Development
Something tells me that our youth may just
be getting an opportunity which need
necessarily not come from government and
which already manifests itself embedded in
prevailing mobile systems. If capacity can
be developed in this way, then the
possibilities are endless but prevarication
or worse still, inaction will be precarious.
That is why this conference is most timely.
Through this forum we are able to reaffirm
our vision and our commitments and pitch
them against the reality of the pace of
development in the industry and see how we
measure up to where we are in relation to
where we want to be. A lot has been done
already but we still have much more to do.
Now is definitely not the time for
complacency.
If capacity development can be achieved then
it is to the advantage of the country as a
whole in relation to point on local content
and services. To facilitate a thriving
mobile ecosystem is an essential element of
this. Having the resources of the internet
at your fingertips at a reasonable cost is
fantastic for all members of society,
especially if a local industry has
contributed significantly to the information
they are consuming.
5. A call on our youths
There’s an obvious gap between elderly
professionals and young industry
entrepreneurs and enthusiasts.
Unfortunately, the industry has lost many
potential bright minds to other sectors with
promises of immediate large salaries. Also,
the few that have chosen to pursue telecoms
have not had the chance to have access to
mentors with immense experience who can
guide them along specific career paths.
However, the onus lies on young people to
take responsibility by first realising that
the strength of the future mobile industry
in Nigeria rests on their shoulders – and
they must reach out to get all the help they
need.
6. The role of Institutions and Agencies
The role of institutions in the development
of the mobile web and applications is a key
one and their active support would have a
considerable multiplier effect on the speed
of the expansion of the ecosystem. The
Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC and
NITDA come in here for special mentioning as
their mandate has suddenly grown beyond what
was written in the act setting them up long
before mobile opportunities came into our
lives.
7. Collaboration and Competition:
While everyone today speaks of Google,
Facebook, Skype and all, a clear difference
between these companies (led by youth like
Nigeria’s) and Nigerian startups is the fact
that while the average young Nigerian goes
his way to start something without the
discipline of mentors and accountability to
senior professionals, these mostly Silicon
Valley-based companies know what it means to
collaborate with other people to build a
powerful team. And when these teams form,
they have healthy competition.
I am happy many of those who have eye
witness experience of what I am saying are
with us here and we could not have expected
a better conference at a better time than
this.
I wish you a fine deliberation.
Titi Omo-Ettu
President, ATCON
Lagos, February 2, 2011.
The Challenge of Bharti
by
titi omo-ettu
This is
not a talk about Bharti. It is, as the
reader will soon find out, a talk about
Nigeria.
You may be forgiven if you thought, from the
name Bharti Airtel that we are referring to
an airline rather than a telecommunications
company. If its meteoric rise among
world-class mobile telecom service providers
has been overlooked in the past, its
acquisition of Zain’s African assets for a
staggering $10.7 billion, sure made us take
notice. Bharti is now the world's fifth
largest mobile phone company by subscribers
base.
It is not new story but the newsy aspect is
that the CEO of Bharti was in Nigeria the
other day to announce that his company would
inject $600million into the business
formerly known as Zain Nigeria with a
promise to reach all Nigerians with cheap
phones. Its capability is neither in doubt
nor is it the issue here either but rather
that this potential intervention allows the
Nigerian Government defer its responsibility
to Bharti playing the role which is rightly
its (i.e. the government’s) to play.
What happens to those who defer their
responsibility to another?
What makes Bharti tick is the storyline that
it is a master explorer of IP technology in
managing business. The trump card Bharti may
wish to tout is its outsourcing model of
managing business. The core truth lies in
the several other things that we do not set
out to discuss.
To start with, once a company is able to
cultivate IP, it is running on the success
lane. All other things will become mere
additions. It is what will eventually
separate the men from the boys in world
economics and in the craft of using
technology to manage business.
Using IP, outsourcing, deep wallets and an
excellent PR/media machine that has the
world’s ears tuned to its aggressive march
into emerging markets, Bharti may just have
struck gold and of course we know
telecommunications is one intoxicating
phenomenon.
By the way, and in parenthesis, our subject
is not the kind of telecom firm whose name
counted a few years ago. It is a trade
vehicle in the manner of emerging businesses
where you buy and sell at a profit. The
interesting thing is that the Nigerian firm
called Zain (formerly many names, almost 5,
starting from Econet Wireless) is the one
that buyers have always used as bait in
Nigeria.
When such companies infiltrate emerging
markets, usually via corrupt polities, their
take over is total. That is quite
understandable isn’t it? Such forays are
characteristically into structurally
defective markets that are customarily low
on morality and ethics and high on
corruption. Even when these polities stumble
on good decisions, because they are often by
default rather than design and lack
conviction or principle, their good
initiatives tend to somehow self destruct.
Take Nigeria for example. After several
years of prevarication and outright refusal
by its rulers to embrace liberalization, it
eventually did in 1993 but in just one year
after it made that decision, it thought the
better of it and the initiative was promptly
reversed by disbanding the NCC board while
simultaneously putting an unbeliever in the
liberalization agenda in charge of NITEL to
complete the hatchet work. Nigerians, who by
then had become almost immune to such crass
decision making from it rulers, had to wait
another five years till 1999 to make a new
beginning. One can attribute a lot of
problems that persist today to such those
days of poor decision making.
With IP, the need for human intervention in
running networks across the world becomes
minimized, thus translating to cheaper costs
and good margins. And if the gains are truly
passed on to the consumers, it makes phone
reach the poor and the rural persons
cheaper. At least in theory but also
demonstrated as real in other climes.
The cost the market pays is that its own
technical work force will not partake in the
production line. The question is, where does
Nigeria stand in all of that? Nigeria is
turning out university graduates without
preparing them for immediate use of the
market. Not even for long term use except
that the users will sort that out
eventually. Graduate unemployment poses a
colossal danger to society. I understand,
unpleasantly though, that some of the
militants in the creeks are graduates. Well
that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Is there a way out?
Of course, there always is. Can Nigeria keep
its people talking without keeping them
working? The answer lies in our bargaining
for every carrot that comes to the table.
That is the challenge of Bharti and a
subject for another day.
July 24, 2010.
Cyberschuulnews 391
Of House of
Reps, NCC & SIM Card Registration
by
Titi Omo-Ettu,
It was a coincidence, but one I found quite
interesting. There is at least some irony in
the fact that the day after I had, at a
Press Conference, called on Nigerian
Communications Commission, NCC, to
effectively make the case of the merits of
SIM card registration to Nigerian phone
users via better communication which extends
beyond its customary deployment of newspaper
advert and website postings, newspapers
also reported that the House of
Representatives were querying the Commission
on why it should ask for a budget to spend
on SIM card registration.
While it is right for our federal
representatives scrutinize a government
agency on accountability for public
spending, what troubles me is the thinking
that belies the Honourables’ inquiry about
why the NCC should plan for money to spend
on SIM card registration ‘when it is not its
business to register SIM card purchasers’.
Let me start by saying that we in ATCON
(Association of Telecommunication Companies
of Nigeria) diverge from the idea of
registration of telephone users being
limited to SIM cards as it suggests that
this process - a continuous census - is for
only mobile telephone users. Indeed the
objective of registration of phone users
which, by the way, was our brainchild, is
not limited to the crime perspective of
mobile telephony, important as that may be,
it is imperative that an industry like ours
must not only track information about people
that use our products and services, but also
managing this information for the public
good is crucial.
A database allows us to manage and use an
incredible variety of information and will
maintain order in an otherwise very chaotic
environment. Its expansion and manipulation
as the industry grows and our resources
increase will not only mean we can fulfill
the requirement of security surveillance,
but it will aid and augment industry and
consequently, national planning and economic
growth.
We also advocate that the Honourable members
should consider that it is the NCC, not
telephone operators, who are justifiably
ruled by their commercial imperatives, that
is our agency that garners the industry’s
and our peoples’ socio-economic interest.
They should be cognizant of the possibility
of failures i.e. less than socially
desirable byproducts of the market from
which our industry is not immune. While
telecom operators would take care of their
investment, it raises the questions for
example, who will educate our people on the
benefits of new technologies? What happens
if telecoms operators mis-educate our
people? The prospect of these by-products
provide a strong rationale for a portfolio
of economic-incentive based public policies
be enveloped by robust regulatory framework
and incentives that systematically evaluate
their success. For this reason and in these
circumstances, people defer to the regulator
to safeguard their interests.
When the NCC approved that we provide a
register of SIM card users, we erroneously
interpreted it to be the first phase of a
bigger assignment but on seeing the proposed
Bill that the Senate is working on, we
realized that the vision of the Bill is
indeed limited to registering only SIM cards
and not all telephone users. Alas it was not
a means to an end but an end itself.
We should impress on the National Assembly
that it listens to itself because we read in
the newspapers that Hon Dave Salako,
Chairman House Committee on Communications,
laboured to explain to his colleagues on the
floor of the House the reasons why NCC’s
powers should not be whittled apparently
because he has seen the good in the good but
limited powers that the agency has enjoyed
to date.
We also need to impress on members of the
House that the little isolated strides that
was made in telecommunications industry has
been partly due to the fine statement
enshrined in the National Communications Act
2003 that defines the realms of the NCC’s
power to perform its function and that any
attempt to whittle down those powers may be
retrograde step taking us back to where we
have come from.
More importantly, the beauty of the
Committee system of a democratic parliament
presumes that the benefit of Committee
members being able to study public affairs
of selected agencies is infinitely deeper
and better than the notion that the
ill-informed can or able to propagate or
implement policy from a re-inforcing
layperson’s perspective all based on the
specious premise of being the peoples’
representatives.
The perfunctory job of scrutinizing public
spending and retaining the success and
independence of the NCC are not mutually
exclusive. It is indisputable that the way
the NCC has professionally discharged its
role and responsibilities has immeasurably
taken the telecommunications industry to the
lofty heights of performance that far
exceeds that of any other public
institution.
“The Business Opportunities of Mobile
Services”
by
titi omo-ettu
I presented a paper on “The Business
Opportunities of Mobile Services” yesterday
at the Annual Assembly of IT Professionals
in Abuja. It was hosted by the Computer
Professionals Registration Council of
Nigeria, CPN. The presentation is attached.
The main points I made were that the
metamorphoses of technology has made us
improved our living standards and sharpened
our business instincts that things that were
not possible a few years back are now
possible. I used my personal experience of
having to modify some of the claims which I
made in a few of my presentations of old to
prove that the whole world may just have
been changing and improving. All in a space
of less than 15 years that the internet
arrived our shores.
I used a few data to demonstrate that there
is no stopping the reliance of our life’s on
mobiles systems and the huge business that
is in there for us to do if we must make all
the un-served over 130 million Nigerians to
be served. I submitted that the technology
exists now waiting for the business
initiatives to take over.
I invited Nigerian IT practitioners to know
that their own aspect of the business is
mainly in Content Creation which, for now,
is only imported if it exists at all in our
own industry.
My position is that Opportunity cannot be
more than this.
I take the position that good political
leadership is one of those things that will
take us there and that professionals in all
their groupings can bring this about by
making sure it is only the politicians who
are ready and willing to use ICT that have
the right to lead us, come 2011.
I made it known that we in ATCON will invite
Presidential Candidates of all political
parties for the 2011 elections to address
our members on what plans they have for ICT
while I admonished all other professional
associations at all levels to also engage
the politicians at various levels what they
have in stock for their own professions and
trades too. With that, we shall put
politicians on the spot and prepare them for
accountability in all aspects of their
responsibility even before they transform
into ‘excellencies’ and ‘honourables’.
To me, while politicians are campaigning to
catch our votes we too shall be campaigning
to stop the unsuitable ones among them from
coming into office since such minds can only
take us back, not forward.
Home may be
where the problem is
Aftermath of 2.3 GHz court verdict
by
titi omo-ettu
One of the engaging issues in the early days
of deregulation in emerging telecom markets
was serial litigation from operators, which
had the potential to slow down growth,
stifle competition and impede tariff
reduction. It was Telecom Answers
Associates, while presenting an industry
study report to the new NCC management of
the very early days of deregulation in
Nigeria that drew attention to what it
called ‘over-litigation’ in several merging
markets stressing the importance of
addressing the matter right from the
fundamentals.
The issue became a popular talking point for
the Commission and the consensus then was
that for the survival of the emerging
Nigerian telecom industry, a robust and
professional Commission was imperative. The
operating military decree of the time,
according to legalists, left room for
manouvre to grow a professional NCC for
sustainability in the embryonic industry.
The National Communications Act 2003 which
emerged almost a decade later, duly lived up
to the billing and it did not disappoint.
There is no doubt that today the NCC met the
vision of those founding fathers in that
regard and even more. Several operators,
especially the so-called ‘big players’
headed for the courts at the slightest
opportunity to undermine the Commission’s
attempt to achieve rollout out services from
every Tom Dick and Harry that held a
license. Fortunately every time they went to
court, the Commission and industry emerged
stronger.
There was the particularly interesting case
of a notable operator’s lawyer who found
offence in then proposed Universal Service
Provision FUND objective on the premise it
would be ‘unfair to us that we contribute
money only for others to spend it’. You
have got to hand it to these guys at least
they keep things interesting.
From all indication, the 2.3 GHz imbroglio
has refused to go away. The latest news was
that NCC pre-emptively issued MOBITEL
license for to pick up as soon as the Abuja
High Court ruled that its licence be
released. Perhaps NCC was thinking ahead
just in case an operator proceeded to court
to argue that the judge had ‘erred in law’,
and to request MOBITEL’s license remained
withheld.
A few days after MOBITEL received its
license, THIS DAY newspaper reported on
Thursday March 25 that the Federal Ministry
of Information and Communications (we dare
not say Minister since there was none at the
time) went back to court on appeal to
request that the judgment be set aside.
In other words, the returning operator
should not be allowed to come into the
market. It calls into question whose
interest the Federal Ministry of Information
and Communications serves. On the face of
it, legalism may just be the interest here
but certainly not the interest of telephone
users for whose interest the ministry was
supposed to be serving.
Chief MKO Abiola of blessed memory once said
‘With friends like these, who needs enemies’
- if you get my drift.
Cyberschuulnews 383
Opportunity
of a Tragedy
by
titi omo-ettu
It is best to present it in the form of a
movie script just to fuel the imagination.
Very apt given that one of the main
characters who, while making the third leg
of an unscheduled tripartite meeting at
Heathrow, had come to the conclusion that
all Nigerians are actors. He claims his
outlandish conclusion is not without basis
and, believe me, he was right. We can say
without contradiction, given the events of
recent months, that Nigeria has gradually
become one huge theatre where unbelievable,
movie-like, things happen.
But we are not talking about theatre here.
Rather opportunities that Information
Technology offers.
Three men, let us call them Messers A, B and
C stumbled on one another brought together
by the harsh reality of an huge ash cloud
from an Icelandic volcano which brought air
travel across Europe to a standstill and for
four days during which, one account said
98,899 flights were cancelled across the
continent. Mr. A, a Cisco executive was
actually heading to Nigeria to pursue an
investment opportunity in the oil rich
country; Mr. B, a visually impaired Scot who
told the story of how he gradually lost his
sight due to a disease that is not the
well-known glaucoma; and Mr.C, a consultant
who was returning from a conference in
Europe to his base in Nigeria.
The three men met at a coffee shop and got
talking after which they all retired to
their respective hotels and reconvened the
next day to hear Mr A say his firm had just
released an internal memo to their top brass
executives that it had made very tidy
billions of dollars in the few days of the
volcanic tragedy not only because
disruptions posed by the volcanic eruption
had prompted business people think and opt
for video conferencing,. but incredibly it
had also induced a few startup companies to
begin a retail business in teleconferencing.
The moral of the story is whenever and
wherever problems spring up unexpectedly in
the world, information technology comes to
the fore providing ready solutions – always
making the best of a bad situation.
Time to
Listen!
(A review of Ernest
Ndukwe’s recent lecture series)
by
titi omo-ettu
One of the drawbacks of the public sector
is a lack of continuity as there is never a
succession plan. In our environment, sitting
officials who plan their succession have
done so even for selfish, sometime very
callous, reasons. This lack of continuity
and consequently inability to plan for the
future is sometimes put forward as an
argument for the ‘limited’ state – one which
has no role in business. NITEL is an
interesting case in point which we have
successfully deployed as a template to
demonstrate that government has no business
running a business.
Ernest Ndukwe, the telecommunications
engineer and manager who had in the last ten
years sat atop the operations of Nigeria’s
Regulator of telecommunications appears to
have now joined the public lecture circuit
discussing what he thinks the future should
be for Nigeria beyond 2010. He can talk
about a future, because he has done
something worth talking about. It was by no
means plain sailing and if he is vindictive,
he probably will also use his lecture to
fight back as he has been battered and
bruised along the way – a ‘parting shot’
especially now that his exit is imminent.
However, the scars on his back tell us he
has earned his stripes to surely have some
say in what (not necessarily who) succeeds
his tenure in office… and he is worth
listening to.
Some few weeks ago, he listed about ten
important issues which taken together, may
translate to having advised the market on
the unfinished business as he leaves office.
Last week was the third and latest time he
discussed those things that contributed to
unprecedented success in Nigeria’s
telecommunications and how they can be
sustained.
His speeches have taken a holistic approach
to the requirements of the future addressing
the kind of attributes that whoever
government eventually appoints into the
Commission should possess; what the focus of
attention should be; as well as the role of
all stakeholders – government, the
regulator, operators, and consumers in
taking the industry to the next level.
The one issue on which Ernest Ndukwe has
been relentless and discussed more than any
other public official throughout his tenure
is the central and critical role public
electricity supply had been to the
telecommunications industry. His unyielding
stance on this thorny issue may be taken to
mean that he has suggested an alternative
procedure for government to look at the
issue of power sector reform in the country.
Although there has also been a professed
reform or even declaration of liberalization
industry in the energy sector, the regime of
implementation has been at best insincere.
Some guys started by mushrooming ‘private
companies’ out of the government octopus
called NEPA and they went about telling us
that is what liberalization is all about.
It was the same in the telecommunication
industry when in 1994, just one year into
liberalization, General Sani Abacha
disbanded the Nigerian Communications
Commission and also went ahead to put ‘a
liberalisation unbeliever’ in charge of
NITEL. By so doing, he stalled
liberalization and there existed an NCC
without a Commission. We ran such an
industry till 1999 when the emerging regime
changed tact.
Perhaps
what Ernest Ndukwe had been saying is that
the liberalization process in the energy
sector needs a rethink and it has something
to learn from the telecommunications sector
reform process.
Ernest
also said that an efficient Frequency
Spectrum Management and allocation is
desirable. Those in the know, know he has
already advised on the quality of who should
be entrusted with the responsibility of day
to day operation of the Commission. No doubt
he must have based this view point of his
personal experiences and the limitations of
the Commission as it is today.
Other issues he has described in various
words include:
Maintaining stability in the policy and
regulatory space; Maintaining the
operational and financial independence of
the regulatory Agency; Invigorating an
operating environment that is conducive to
attracting investment; Emphasis on growing
broadband infrastructure and catalyzing
adoption and usage of broadband services by
the citizens; Expansion of fibre optic cable
transmission infrastructure nationally and
internationally and striving for improved
corporate Governance in the industry.
If there
ever was a time for us to listen, it is now
CyberschuulNews 370
2/11: Will
The Senate Stick or Twist?
by
titi omo-ettu
At a session in Abuja about four months ago,
Nii Quaynor the renowned Ghanaian internet
engineer and expert, referred to those who
conduct terrorist activities on the internet
as ‘cyber-miscreants’ - a term that stuck in
my mind and I guess that of many delegates
judging by their reaction. Owing to issues
of timing, I never got the opportunity to
engage Nii on that vocabulary.
I had specifically wanted to ask Nii that in
his thesaurus, what word would best capture
the perpetrator of internet terrorism were
it a country rather than an individual? This
question is particularly poignant in the
context of the prevailing spat between China
and Google, which was brewing then and has
now escalated to international level with
the United States calling on China to
moderate itself on the recent cyber attacks
on Google that have prompted the search
giant to threaten to leave.
I eventually posed the question at Nii’s
Nigerian opposite, Chris Uwaje who told me
it would be appropriate to call them cyber
terrorists for want of a more severe
description.
Assuming you catch a ‘cyber-terrorist’ state
(my imagination does not stretch that far)
what do you do? Prosecute her? Jail her? Who
will judge and who will be the jury? And
under which law? (my mind drifts to Basil
Udotai). Answers on a postcard and please do
not mention the UN.
This inevitably leads us down a tricky path.
Firstly the very nature of cyber-terrorism –
conducted by faceless, ubiquitous entities
that could spread across national
boundaries- means it does not fit prescribed
international or legal definitions. By
extension the issue who will emerge
victorious – the perpetrators or the
prosecutors comes to the fore and it is by
no means clear cut. Thirdly there is the
issue of retribution. It is easy to
administer justice (or punishment if you
wish) if the perpetrator is an individual or
a group of individuals. However if the
perpetrator(s) is a state, then we are in a
bit of a sticky situation.
Two days ago as the weekend commenced, US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in
Washington that those perpetrating such
cyber attacks “should face (the)
consequences.” In specific reference to the
China/Google spat. What these ‘consequences’
could possibly be given China’s
socio-political, economic and military might
is of great interest.
Chris Uwaje had told me then that I should
wait till sometime in the first quarter of
2010 when he and his constituency would
engage the legislature. I am aware that he
is in the fore front of mobilizing effort at
getting our legislators to hear him and
other experts out on the subject for the
purposes of formulating a coherent response
to the threat posed by this thorny issue.
Certainly there will be unknowns and
unworkables in this scenario. They include
what those experts will tell the legislators
and what the response of the distinguished
Senators will be.
Allegedly all will become clearer on
February 11 at the International Conference
Centre Abuja. Stick or twist, we all await
proceedings with great anticipation.
2/11 must be a date indeed!
CyberschuulNews 361
Who is
dominating who around here?
by
titi omo-ettu
Although hardly discussed, one major source
of consternation to many telecommunication
regulators is the subject of market
dominance. Seems harmless enough to start
worrying about until a nasty dominant
operator appears on the scene and starts to
throw its commercial weight about. For a
host of reasons, players are quick at
perceiving a regulator as weak when the
latter fails to install appropriate systems
and controls to ensure that firms which see
themselves as big in the midst of others do
not abuse their market power. This failure
of the office and power of the regulator
sometimes results in an imbroglio which sets
firms against one another. It starts
becoming an issue when such bellyaches
become headaches and the forces of stress
and distress set everybody and especially
the consumers against the regulator.
The need
to curtail dominance primarily stems from
the necessity to achieve long term and
sustainable competition in the market.
In
monopoly Nigeria of those days it was
government itself that was the culprit. That
is to say it was a straight fight between
government, the operator, and its citizens,
the consumers.
In the
early days of regulation in Nigeria, NITEL
was the first among unequals and but for the
good side of corruption (corruption too has
its good side after all !) which brought it
to its knees, its dominance, essentially due
to its monopoly, would have known no bounds.
In the heady days of the military and at the
height of NITEL’s monopoly, one
soldier-minister, decided that users of a
telephone exchange which got burnt down at
the hands of its operators should pay for
its restoration. The time of this aberration
coincided with the tenure of a Chief
Executive who was noted for his campaign
that ‘telecommunications is a natural
monopoly’ doing all within his power to
ensure the emerging competition which was at
the time embryonic was thoroughly stifled.
Today,
NITEL is comatose and everybody, it seems,
has put this in the trash can of their
memory even though all these happened less
than 20 years ago.
So who is dominating who now?
In environments where the regulator is
either smart or sufficiently experienced, it
makes the dominant operators tariff and
other indices of assessment subject to its
own approval while other operators may just
be allowed some bench mark within which to
maneuver on tariff as a mere publication may
be required to move within the approved
limits. The solution begins from defining
who the dominant operator is and that is
what makes the subject interesting
(difficult really) to handle.
In one particular market in Asia, academics
were brought in by a regulator to help
fine-tune the definitions and framework to
determine who the dominant operator was but
when the internal combustion of politics set
in and the heat became intense, the men of
books opted for a return to the serenity and
the familiarity of their university
campuses.
Sometimes some folks either naively or
mischievously confuse the terms ‘dominant
operators’ and ‘incumbents’ in markets which
liberalized from a monopoly as did several
across the globe.
Pose the question differently, is there a
dominant operator in Nigeria?
Very good question which no one has posed
and no one has answered until about now.
An advert is already in the media reporting
that the Nigerian Communications Commission
is now posing the question and seeking
answers. The advert says the Commission
seeks comments on issues related to whether
certain companies are exercising dominant
market power with the purpose (and effect)
of substantially weakening competition in
these markets. For now, it has chosen to
shine its torch on two markets -: The Mobile
and The Internet Connectivity markets.
Chances are that the Commission must have
been reacting to simmering discontent which
is now coming to the boil and can no longer
be ignored.
It may be a wild goose chase, but a nice one
nevertheless.
‘F’ings just
gotta change
by
titi omo-ettu
These were the famous words of a radical
politician of the left who is, probably, now
retired. Things changed alright, but in
which direction? Perhaps not in one that
might have impressed the speaker. It would
be rather interesting to hear his thoughts
on the events of the past two years.
Indeed things are changing and very fast
too. As technological innovation gathers
even more frenetic pace, it may be a stretch
too far for one’s imagination what the
‘ordinary person’ would do should they be
afforded the illimitable opportunities
Broadband Internet Access offers. The
politicians would tell us that the ordinary
person is far too bogged down by the daily
grind of trying to provide the basics of
food, clothing and shelter for themselves
and their families to care about
‘broadband’. And perhaps they have a point.
But the nature of our politics and
politicians makes it harder to decipher
where the line between this approach as an
abstraction of reality ends and where
upholding it as a justification for inaction
begins. To ‘bring home’ the reality and its
possibilities, a few guys got together
recently to discuss broadband and its
effects on the basics of food, security,
industry, transportation and more. Is
somebody listening?
Let us consider some alternatives.
It’s been suggested that technology should
be encouraged, developed and applied. One
method for consideration is that agencies of
government that superintend over technology
creation and development coalesce and
administered under one bureaucracy - joined
up government - if you wish. This is a
model which if implemented with principles
and conviction will deliver good management
of the resources of technology. Another
method is to have a concentric grouping of
those agencies that develop technology
together and those who regulate and motivate
its application.
It has been suggested that the latter model
is good for developing economies. Nigeria is
one of such economies though economic
development and growth pattern in other
sectors make that claim less discernible.
But at least on the issue of
telecommunications and information
technology, it is an emerging market which
demands and deserves management.
If the emerging technologies especially in
the ICT's are not properly managed, society
suffers as it is either isolated from the
proverbial global village or its people pay
exceedingly to realize the benefits of
emerging technologies. This is exactly the
motive driving the IT revolution that is
taking place in East Africa.
There are two key issues that we need to
address. Firstly, the need for a revised
policy framework which all parties need to
look up to particularly for investors as it
allows them to map out long term investment
plans and how that translates and
implemented in the market. And secondly, a
corresponding administrative and regulatory
framework in which these technologies are
implemented which some people call
restructuring. In both cases, the ‘ordinary
person’ has little role to play but
government should play its role and govern
in the interest of all rather than narrow
itself to issues of winning elections as has
been the case in Nigeria.
If the past two years are anything to go by,
the country has shown little in way of
direction in ICT policy re-formulation. If
it is intended, it is yet to be seen. This
lack of direction and review of how the
sector is being managed for better results
engenders an exclusion of minds that can see
the fuller picture exacerbated by the
arguments that ICT is fine but intangible
and inconsequential in comparison to roads,
food and 'wining' elections.
One morning this week, a TV channel took on
the issues of federal roads, ASUU strike,
decaying hospitals, and Saudi Arabia visit.
I swiftly changed channels desperately
trying not to have negativity ruin the long
day ahead only to be confronted by more
misery on another channel where the
discussion was about the refusal to assist
London’s Metropolitan Police to prosecute
some charlatans of the land; industrial
action by primary school teachers across the
land and 90% failure of all secondary school
students who sat the NECO examination in
Sokoto State. My third escape channel was
reporting on assassinations, kidnappings,
0-1, 0-2 serial losses for our under-20’s in
Egypt and the like. Such a catalogue of
negativity begs the question ‘How can all
these happen in one single country?’ And
these are only the ones that make it to the
newsrooms!
I suppose it is the case that ‘bad news
sells’. By extension we can deduce that
Telecom ICT does not get a mention because
for all intent and purposes, it is the one
sector that has been fairly well run and has
a good story to tell. The mind boggles at
such complacency. Presumably we will start
talking when we are dragged to where we
started from.
’F’ings, indeed just gotta change? Never
have truer words been spoken.
CyberschuulNews 356
3G NETWORK
SYSTEMS: THE CHOICE & CHALLENGE THAT AWAIT
NIGERIA
by
titi omo-ettu
1st things first, let’s discuss why we are
where we are. We shall then recall some
historical perspectives and also mention a
few personal experiences.
In 1995 the NCC commissioned a study under
the title of ‘Study into Cellular Mobile
Telecommunications Market in Nigeria’. The
report of that study led to various
motion-without-movement experiences between
then and year 2000 when there was a
modification that turned out ‘A magic’.
In the early days of Mobile Systems, there
was fragmented market. Systems went by their
proprietary standards and generally cared
less about interoperability. There were: The
American Standards, The European Standards,
The Nordic Countries Standards. Two notable
realizations emerged:
One; that mobile systems thrive on economy
of scale and interoperability makes business
sense and two; that even poor countries
could be viable markets.
Then emerged the ‘generational’ initiative
as in assigning vocabulary to each stage of
mobile technology development. Each
generation represented an improvement in
spectrum capacity usage and ITU took
advantage of the global realisation and
situated itself for its natural role. It
operated in a true belief that business
would be truly global and that regulators
would have less problems of incompatibility
to deal with. The initiative seemed good for
all concerned. On top of this, it was also
realised that there is money to make
everywhere.
The First Generation of systems for mobile
telephony was analog, circuit switched, FDMA
Access technology, and it only carried voice
traffic. The analog phones used in 1G were
less secure and prone to interference where
the signal is weak. Analog systems include
AMPS [in the US], NMT[ In Nordic Countries :
East Europe, Asia and Russsia] and ETACS[in
UK].
The Second Generation of mobile telephony
systems, 2G uses digital encoding. 2G
networks support high bit rate voice,
limited data communications and different
levels of encryption. 2G networks include
GSM, D-AMPS (TDMA) and CDMA. 2G networks can
support SMS applications.
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a
mobile data service available to users of
GSM mobile phones. Although GSM is strictly
a 2G standard, that GPRS is an enhancement
of it makes it code-named a 2.5G generation
of mobile phones. GPRS, which supports a
wide range of bandwidths, is an efficient
use of limited bandwidth and is particularly
suited for sending and receiving small
bursts of data, such as e-mail and Web
browsing, as well as large volumes of data.
2.5G extends 2G systems, adding features
such as packet-switched connection and
enhanced data rates. 2.5G networks include
EDGE and GPRS. These networks support WAP,
MMS, SMS mobile games, search and
directory.
One of the major limitations of Second
Generation cellular communications systems
is that data can only be transferred after a
connection has been established. This is
inefficient if only small amount of data is
transferred, and in situations where data is
transferred in bursts. 2.5G cellular systems
allow a mobile station to be "always-online"
for sending and receiving packet data. This
allows efficient transfer of small amounts
of data, without the overhead of
establishing a connection for each transfer.
It also efficiently supports bursty data
transfers, avoiding the need to allocate
capacity to a connection that cannot be
reallocated by the network if the connection
chooses not to use it. The two major forms
of 2.5G enhancements to second-generation
cellular systems are the General Packet
Radio Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Data Rates
for Global Evolution (EDGE). Some GSM
networks support the General Packet Radio
Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Data Rates for
Global Evolution (EDGE).
The Next Generation Network
The next generation networks (NGN) would
support all traffic demands. Specifically,
it should meet all the following services: A
single network must converge voice, data and
video traffic, support mobility, have a very
high speed switching core, must be packet
based technology and must support value
added services.
It is usual to refer to 3G systems as a Next
Generation Network System. They can also be
described as ITU’s IMT 2000 family because
it was in the year 2000 that there was
unanimous approval of the technical
specifications for third generation systems
under the brand IMT-2000. The spectrum
between 400 MHz and 3 GHz is technically
suitable for the third generation. This
approval meant that for the first time, full
interoperability and inter-working of mobile
systems could be achieved.
What specific advantages are envisaged?
IMT-2000 offers the capability of providing
value-added services and applications on the
basis of a single standard. The system
envisages a platform for distributing
converged fixed, mobile, voice, data,
Internet and multimedia services. One of its
key visions is to provide seamless global
roaming, enabling users to move across
borders while using the same number and
handset. IMT-2000 also aims to provide
seamless delivery of services, over a number
of media (satellite, fixed, etc…). It is
expected that IMT-2000 will provide higher
transmission rates: a minimum speed of
2Mbit/s for stationary or walking users, and
348 kbit/s in a moving vehicle.
Second-generation systems only provide
speeds ranging from 9.6 kbit/s to 28.8 kbit/s
The often quoted major strengths of Third
Generation Mobile technology is its
suitability for voice, video and data
services including video, video conferencing
and Internet access. For equipment vendors
and manufacturers, there is universal
agreement, a necessity really, that they
will be flexible, affordable, compatible
with existing systems and modular.
Why embrace 3G?
Considering that Nigerians have demonstrated
a thirst for Broadband internet access and
that so far there is still lack of broadband
internet. Considering also that Digital
Subscriber Line, DSL is not known to have
been commonplace, there is a pressing need
to fill the gap. And 3G may just do that
according to some specialists. What is more,
recent experiences show that Nigerians
create opportunities on emerging
technologies. Moreover, it is cheaper and
quicker to roll-out 3G/WCDMA than to run
communication cables to every home.
With all the above arguments some have
forecast that high uptake of services in 3G
is therefore expected if launched. Who
knows, these may have informed the embrace
of 3G by the industry regulator which is
known to have issued licenses to all
existing mobile service providers.
Wideband CDMA, also known as UMTS in Europe,
is 3G standard for GSM in Europe, Japan and
the United States. It's also the principal
alternative being discussed in Asia. It
supports very high-speed multimedia services
such as full-motion video, Internet access
and video conferencing. It uses one 5 MHz
channel for both voice and data, offering
data speeds up to 2 Mbps.
The Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
A digital wireless technology that uses a
spread spectrum technique to scatter a radio
signal across a wide range of frequencies.
CDMA is a 2G technology. WCDMA, a 3G
technology, is based on CDMA. CDMA has
multiple variants, including CDMA 1X,
cdma2000, CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 1xEV-DO and
cdmaOne.
What is possible?
All e-advantages[ e-learning, e-business,
e-sports etc] Video Telephony, eMail,
Location Services, instant messaging, etc
High Speed Internet Access and Interactive
Multimedia. These do not come without
challenges though. We should expect
challenges in the areas of Licensing,
infrastructure, and capacity building.
We must be conscious of some drawbacks such
as the reality that users have to make
completely new investment in 3G compliant
terminals just as lack of access of majority
to the internet may limit penetration.
Recommendations
It is hoped that the structure 3G License
fee so far supports affordability going by
the enthusiasm with which the existing
operators are canvassing for their monopoly
of the license. It is at this stage that the
often repeated need to review telecom
engineering training syllabus in good time
to meet current challenges is apt.
4G encourages architecture "openness". The
services that 3G can offer should be such
that it can be developed by any content
vendor. The architecture is open as opposed
to proprietary in that it allows third party
vendor to run in the network. The 3G is not
necessarily designed with open Application
Programming Interface (API). The API in each
network decided what developed services that
can be used by a network operator in the
network. So, 4G is an enhancement to 3G with
open API for third party applications
(services) developments.
Presented November 2006
CyberschuulNews 353
2.3 GHz
verdict: It was Them not Us
by
titi omo-ettu
The image that President Barrack Obama may
not be a happy man after all is etched in my
consciousness. Something keeps telling me
that the fellow would have wished that
Nigeria lives up to reputation as the
world’s most populous black country and
worthy of the title, ‘centre of the world’
for all black people.
In this episode of ‘The West Wing’ that is
playing in my mind, El Presidente has
assembled his inner caucus of the ruling
class and asked them ‘how can I tell the
folks in Nigeria to shape up without causing
unnecessary offence’. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton perks up to say ‘I do, Mr.
President’ to which he responds, ‘Great,
don’t tell me. I think you should go tell
them in person’. And so came Hillary.
Suffice to say that she came at a time when
listening and doing good was not a high
point of those who are on the cockpit in
these parts. One even went as far as telling
her to mind her own business.
Or how do we explain it. Mrs. Clinton’s
plane had barely left the tarmac at the
airport when what clearly was an executive
intervention in a purely judicial logjam was
announced from the office of President Yar
Adua.
For those of us in the awkward squad who
argue and believe we should put the
controversy surrounding the 2.3 GHz spectrum
licenses behind us and face the future,
there is yet an explanation to make so
future generation does not ask us what the
hell a whole lot of 140 million of us were
doing when rule of law was being murdered.
The objective here is not to revisit the
controversy all over but to appraise the
validity of the decision both in law and
practice so as to ensure that an inadequate
framework is neither the template nor
precedent to which current and future
generations will have to adhere. It is
vitally important in a participatory
democracy that legislative and executive
decisions are subject to scrutiny to avoid
any potential ugly precedent before it sets
in stone. It is what makes us citizens
rather than mere bystanders in the
democratic process.
For starters, it is going to be difficult
for rational minds to agree to using the
President's decision as a precedent for
future if and whenever all facts present
themselves again as they did in the 2.3Ghz
instance. It is a failure of our democracy
that our laws in this instance are not
allowed rigorous scrutiny and intellectual
dialysis.
In the ensuing ‘presentation-over-substance’
scenario, the commercial imperatives of
using the story by the local media dictated
that this very public spat was personalised
and drawn out thus making it an issue of
'who' was right (which meant that the other
was wrong) when the issue should have been
of 'what' was right or what was wrong.
So what was wrong?
It was wrong for our system to create and
perpetuate a climate in which the decision
of a Commission be reduced to and regarded
as the decision of a person. It makes an
institutional failure a personal one and
consequently remedy is thought of and
applied in the context of personnel rather
than of systems or institutions. That the
person singled out for criticism is not the
Chairman of the Commission (where ideally
the buck stops) does not help but rather
makes it messier.
It was wrong for a complaint to be
fabricated as it eventually emerged from
records and facts from AO3 Company’s strong
rebuttal, which categorically stated that it
did not participate in an auction and
therefore could not have written a petition
about a process it was not party to.
It was wrong that the advice given by the
Federal Attorney General and Minister of
Justice to Mr. President was allowed to leak
to the press or blatantly published in the
media to the effect that the minister’s (of
Communications that is) intervention was
impolite to the law.
With so much wrong, it is difficult to
catalogue what was right in the whole milieu
except the perfect opportunity for us to
test our Communications Act within the
purview of the executive. Unfortunately it
is an opportunity we have missed.
We are in a nightmare, somebody wake us up.
CyberschuulNews 352
Big tree,
small axe
by
titi omo-ettu
With the warped entertainment content of the
CBN’s act of last week, there is an
overwhelming temptation to get carried away
such that we forget to import whatever
lessons it offers our industry.
The week's sacking of five CEOs for
‘winning’ banks produced a drought of news
in the telecommunications sector. It
suggested that ceteris paribus, events in
our industry pale into insignificance due to
the axe falling on the supremo’s of our
banking industry. The guys who produce
CyberschuulNews told us that unless we wrote
an opinion column this week, there was no
news for them to report or to analyse. Very
true as I found out when week drew to an
end.
Nothing inspires newshounds more than 'How
hath the mighty fallen' especially when the
'mighty' in question belong to the class
that readers love to hate. If as they say 'a
week is a long time in politics', two months
must therefore be eternity. Given that not
quite two months ago the 'mighty' were
collecting awards, buying jets for pastors
and distributing religious tracts as part of
bank product leaflets (talk about a conflict
of interest), is it not a tad strange how
jubilant we are about their fall from grace?
Yet we all pretended to be ignorant of the
fact the front (and middle) pages of our
newspapers have been taken over by bank
adverts while we were treated as if we
actually pay to buy adverts rather than
content in our newspapers.
If we must profit from all this, then we
must quickly identify two lessons which the
telecom industry can learn from the finance
industry’s recent experience.
We should remind ourselves that if and when
services providers merit sanction, they
should be dealt with. Our laws must provide
for those who evoke such sanctions to think
of how the decision will affect the common
consumers and to take action to mitigate
their losses. Of course our experience is
that many service providers had, on their
own, folded up and closed shop. Many of them
in recent memory - MTS of old, EMIS, Mobitel
of old, to name but a few. In the ensuing
wreckage, no one cared about what happened
to the real stakeholders - the subscribers
who had made investment in such networks. It
is time our law thought in this direction.
There is something for our legislature to
keep in mind as they attempt to edit the
existing Act.
The other is the treating awards and laurels
like confetti at a wedding - conferred on
everyone and anyone which, to be brutally
frank, is somewhat suffocating. It is not as
if we believe these awards or that they mean
little more than businesses and
organisations disingenuously ingratiating
themselves with their sponsors. In this era
of reciprocal back scratching among the
undeserving, a modicum of modesty and a
reality check is both required and
necessary.
It is time we demanded an arrest of this
culture of roguery, hate and moral indecency
that is like a parasite feasting on the soul
of our society.
