Posted by Champion on
Nigeria's Telecom infrastructure, regional backbones (fiberoptic Network) Network and access point of presence (POPs/Co-location)Network facilities are in dilapidated state, or have not improved, or are non-existent.
Nigeria's Telecom infrastructure, regional backbones (fiberoptic Network) Network and access point of presence (POPs/Co-location)Network facilities are in dilapidated state, or have not improved, or are non-existent. Therefore deploying state-of-the-art satellites technology or MAST/GPRS/Microwave/Spectrum technology alone would not solve the problem without building new regional facilities.
Deploying satellite technology may be good for the Oil and Gas industry or the multinationals for geological surveys and TV broadcasting industry but the average Nigerian voice/data product consumer doesn't benefit. Anything that goes up must come down. Simple Laws of Gravity Applies here. But how do you transport and distribute the information in real time with the present NITEL infrastructure? Also, Why should Ministry of Communications/NCC put such a high premium on Internet connections in a developing country like Nigeria?
First, most of the Obasanjo administration political appointees to the NCC and Ministry of Communications are either too old (ages over 60) or don't understand modern technology trends since US government deregulated Telecom industry in early 1990s. Incompetent! Just look at the age range of the men in the National Communications Commission and the state of the telecom sector today. Most of them should be retired. Nigeria has a reactive Obasanjo PDP regime and I don't think the advisers understand 'convergence' terminology the experts are talking about. In IT lingo, convergence refers to the process where incoming/outgoing wireless, data, voice, videotraffic (multimedia) merge in the transmission channel and an intelligent carrier switch software separates the traffic types (PDU), aggregates and sends the packet/cell payload in real time to the receiving destination head end/edge systems.
In Telecom Industry, the POPS/Co-location facilities are synonymous to regional 'Airports' to the Airline (Bellview/Sosoliso/Virgin/EAS)operators. The US Telecom (deregulation) revolution started in the mid 1990 and most of the global equipment and software applications manufacturers are based in
Silicon Valley or Boston Area. Also, the home the US Telecom Industry, Dallas/Richardson in Texas should be the interface for infrastructure experts for NITEL infrastructure development. Telecom equipment prices have dropped significantly because of industry consolidation and competition the past five years or more. NCC/Min of Communications has spent so much money attending International Conferences without any direct benefit to the consumers. These International Telecom Conferences are sales shops where (equipment/software/applications) vendors hawk their products to potential buyers with capital budgets.
Nigerian Mobile phone operators are ripping handsome rewards tax-free or rate of return on investment (no tax) in Nigeria while our so-called experts at NCC/Ministry of Communications are pushing paper for the sale of NITEL as the solution to improved Telecom services such as file transfers, electronic mail etc. to the public domains or consumers. NCC lacks expertise in conceptual 'Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol' popularly known as TCP/IP in information technology. Mobile phone rates would remain high because NITEL failed to provide massive fixed landlines to the urban centers.
Mobile phone should supplement fixed landlines and Obasanjo/El Rufai wasted our resources on Pentascope/NITEL deal. Nobody was punished.
For example, British Telecom and British Airways are state owned monopolies operating in the competitive market. Nigeria does not need to privatize NITEL or PCHN/NEPA to provide efficient and effective service delivery to Nigerian consumers.
Nigeria has a leadership where only the reactive Obasanjo Presidency (Aso Rock) calls the shots at the Aviation Industry, Transportation, Agriculture, Communications, Petroleum Affairs and others. Military top down management style does not work in Nigeria or Africa. Don't blame Nigerians for not performing but put the blame on the national leadership.
People need to talk whenever they want to but Nigerian consumers pay for services they never get. First, they often can't get connection when they want to make a call and with operator limited available bandwidth and increased traffic, frequent call drops may occur. Minister of Communications, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, can't influence mobile phone tariffs or consumer rates. The forces of demand and supply determines the tariff rate operators are charging Nigerian consumers. Min of Communications, Chief Cornelius Adebayo, doesn't understand technology and he should not be credited with the development of the wireless market in Nigeria. Most Nigerians spend more money on recharge cards/mobile phones than family feeding or welfare. How does the poor masses or the average businessman or businesswoman with three cell phones reduce cost?
Instead of whole privatization of NITEL, Nigerian authorities should have designed and built distribution Network facilities in each federal zone and leased the space to the Mobile/Telecom operators. Building adequate infrastructure to cover a vast territory like Nigeria is expensive but FG/National Assembly has the capacity to plan, build and maintain such critical Telecom facilities with surplus Oil windfall.
Until NITEL builds efficient regional integrated access point of presence (POPS) to transport and distribute multimedia services, Nigeria's mobile phone prices would remain high. Privatization is not the answer, Nigerians are trainable and we need good management and leadership. Would the FG/National Assembly/BPE sell Nigeria, Abuja, Kano, Lagos, PH, Enugu Airports to the highest bidder? If no, why sell NITEL because some leaders don't have effective management plans and vision to save our national assets.
Most businesses need reliable landlines for faxing, Internet connectivity, personal computer, printer, applications hosting, local area networks (LAN), conferencing and other broadband services. Does Nigeria need privatization to achieve efficiency at NITEL? No, Nigerians are smart people and I strongly believe that some of our unemployed university graduates could be trained in system maintenance, network management, applications support and field service engineering work. Obasanjo needs to look beyond Aso Rock advisers to recruit qualified Nigerians to manage, technically and administratively, the NITEL/Telecom sector. How do you force Mobile Phone rate crash, FG NITEL should deploy (increase landlines 500 per cent per year) more fixed land lines to all major regions or urban centres and reduce Internet connectivity fees by 75 per cent to spur growth.
Nigeria's problem in the telecommunication sector is two fold. Number one problem that I can identify is the technical leadership at NCC and Ministry of Communications. Second major problem in telecom sector is NEPA or PHCN inability to provide constant uninterrupted power supply to sustain mission critical carrier class switches, routers, servers, data centers at various distributed access point of presence (POPs) interconnected Networks with optical fiber OC192/48/12/3 trunks/circuits. I don't want to sound too technical on what I am trying to explain. This is not a thesis paper but real world practical solutions after proper project analysis, design and implementation phases. Telecom equipment prices crashed after the last stock market crash and the firms are yet to recover to pre- 2000 level. Also, Telecom management applications and software vendors are offering good deals in the open global market through competitive pricing. Nigerians have the brains to effectively man age NITEL and PHCN if Obasanjo Administration hires the right technical people based on their abilities.
Ironically, NITEL has failed to provide the infrastructure to sustain the transmission of converged multimedia traffic across the country.
Nigerians should realize that efficient mobile phone service, less frequent call drops, no cross talk and other broadband services would not materialize with present state of PHCN power supply. So, we should ask Obasanjo/Liyel Imoke, power expert, what has been accomplished with the huge allocations since 1999? Maybe NEPA/PHCN is choking NITEL capacity to buy and deploy modern equipment because these new telecom optical switches/routers demand constant electricity supply, not generator power. In addition, all telecom equipment need to be at certain clean (no dust) room temperature (24x7x365) year round.
Present Mobile Phone operators (Glo, MTN, etc) don't have the bandwidth to support the amount of traffic in Nigeria without NITEL providing some of the POPs infrastructure. For instance, without government owned Lagos Airport, PH Airport, Kano Airport, Enugu Airport, how would the Airline operators provide services to Nigerians? Telecom operators need NITEL access POPs to enhance services while the Airplane operators need FAAN regional airports to operate their businesses.
If PHCN/NEPA/Liyel Imoke would step up to provide stable electricity supply by utilizing natural gas in the Niger Delta region, after 40 years of wasteful flaring, then I believe NITEL with the right technical leadership and management could build/maintain access point of presence (POP) in all regions. If the Minister of Power/Utilities, Chief Liyel Imoke, the 'Aso Rock Power Guru' had used his billion Naira allocation annually to build/construct one new gas turbine power station each year in Southern States between 1999-2005, Nigeria would be better off today. Got it?