Mr. Ajay Awasthi is Chief Executive Officer, Spectranet Limited, the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) to launch 4G LTE internet service in Nigeria. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf, he speaks on the prospects, opportunities and challenges within the nation’s telecommunications ecosystem. Excerpts:
A survey on ‘Top 20 Internet Countries Statistics 2019’ ranked Nigeria 7th position in internet usage. How did we achieve this feat?
There are 4.1 billion Internet users in the world as at December 2018. This is compared to 3.9 billion Internet users in mid-2018 and about 3.7 billion Internet users in late 2017. Europe is a runner up with 16.8 percent of all Internet users. According to the report, Nigeria ranked seven among the top 20 internet countries, coming behind China, which topped the list with India, USA, Brazil, Indonesia and Japan taking second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively. Nigeria with a population of 200 million people has over 111 million internet users and has recorded about 55,716 % internet growth. The growth percentage represents the increase in the number of Internet users between the years 2000 and 2019. That Nigeria is number 7 and that is a proud moment for us all. And I think it’s a good pointer to the fact that Nigeria is truly growing. And that growth is driven largely by its population size.
The level of internet penetration in remote places is inadequate. Are you looking at making access available for persons within remote areas?
We have plans to expand alright. Right now, we are in four major cities such as Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Ibadan. That’s where I think the maximum growth is happening but I’m sure we are looking at other opportunities in Kano, Kaduna, etc. We are looking at those areas. There are people who keep telling us we have not launched, we are looking at reaching those places. We are also looking at getting into satellite-based broadband internet services. What would happen is in certain areas, even within Lagos, where we cannot reach them some times, people like to access services through satellite. As an operator, you need to be sensitive to what the customers want.
Do you also factor in the downtime being experienced when customers use your services?
We do that. That’s what we mentioned earlier. We take lot of care to ensure that our servers don’t go down. The server is provided by a third party provider. But before they go there to rectify the faults, we have a couple of vans here so we send our people there just to ensure that our customers don’t suffer unduly. But I think it’s a challenge in Nigeria. We are doing everything decisively to stay up line.
You talked about engaging third party for your servers. Are you aware that your customer doesn’t know about third party service providers? What they are after is your service. Are you looking at changing your third party providers in order to guarantee effective and efficient services?
Yes you’re right. Our customers should not be made to think that services are failing because of power cuts and things like that. We are very mindful of that. Right now, we try to ensure that these issues are addressed as quickly as they come. We go out of our way just to ensure that our customers don’t necessarily have to suffer on the account power cuts. Once we get such complaints depending on where the customer stays, before our service providers reach there, we send our vans over there to address the issue. Of course, not many internet service providers (ISPs) are able to do that.
There are claims that tie-two operators including internet service providers like you are not investing. How true is that?
That’s not true. If we are not investing, we can’t achieve the modest successes we have achieved thus far. I don’t have data for others but I know our case is different. Power is one of the main issues we contend within the sector and it’s not peculiar to us alone. We have our own niche. I our power is down, we send our vans to the spot to see things for ourselves before the issue escalate. Not many operators are able to afford that kind of luxury.
As a customer-centric company we are constantly thinking of how to satisfy our customers by designing products aimed at delivering optimum service and performance at all time. In a rapidly evolving Data market like Nigeria, the subscribers most often get confused by extremely complex and difficult -to-understand Data plans offered by various operators. At Spectranet, we understand Data users’ behaviour much better, being the first operator to launch 4G LTE services in Nigeria. Recently, we found that there is a significant shift in usage behaviour from day time tonight time driven by Youtubers, online bloggers and other online entrepreneurs. Another thing that is very important is that they are very simple and honest plans. If you hear people they would say, you’ll get this, you’ll get that but at the end, you don’t get anything or your expectations are not met. But in our data plan, you get what we promise. We also give our customers more GBs, especially if they join our network. We do a lot of things.
I recall during the World Cup last year, we had this very nice promo on then. We said, if Nigeria scores, if Nigeria scores one goal, our customers would get one GIG and if Nigeria wins a match each of our customers would get five GIGs. But unfortunately, Nigeria won only one match at in the tournament. A lot of people did appreciate what we did. So this is about being honest and truth with what you do. So there are challenges like that. And I think it’s a testimony to our service, In spite of these challenges, I can tell you, we are not just surviving but we are doing well. And we are doing our duty to the nation in terms of providing this high plus data. Affordable data plan for our customers. As you are aware, we pioneered the 4G network within the Nigerian market. That simply shows that we recognise the need to offer value addition tour customers, which remains the key factor that determines our product offerings.
Structured to suit the needs of all types of data users – casual users, moderate users and heavy users, these simple easy-to-understand plans named as Unified Value, Mega Value and Always On plan, singularly focus on delivering superior value to the subscribers resulting in significant savings. The core idea behind the launch of these plans is to offer Data users superior value through simple, uncomplicated data plans packing in either bonus night time GBs or Unlimited Night time browsing. Our subscribers in all usage categories can now enjoy seamless day-night access to Internet without having to worry about paying exorbitant charges. Spectra-cular data plans empower subscribers to “do more” and “save more” with reliable and affordable internet.
As you are aware, Spectranet Limited was the first Internet Service Provider (ISP) to launch 4G LTE internet service in Nigeria. The brand is known for providing affordable, faster and more reliable internet broadband to Nigerian homes and offices. Its internet service is currently available across Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and Port Harcourt. Its state of the art 4G LTE network ensures high-speed internet connectivity for the customers.
Nigeria’s tremendous populace could offer the nation such open door, if just the government could make rapid broadband availability accessible to all Nigerians at moderate rate. Nigeria has a praiseworthy National Broadband Policy, yet very few Nigerians approach broadband administrations because of a few components. Nigeria needs dependable, moderate fast broadband network that is secured that will upgrade nature of administration, great client encounter that will realise advancements and inventiveness in boosting the country’s economy.
What is your view on the issue of high cost of broadband administrations in Nigeria?
The cost of giving broadband administrations in Nigeria is high and the cost continued expanding and it is probably going to additionally increment by another 10 for every penny in the coming months. So the government and the NCC must ascent to their obligations to address the issue of high cost of giving broadband administrations in the nation. Out of the more than 100 authorised ISPs in the nation, just few are at present existing and giving broadband administrations, while others have been antagonistically influenced by the high cost of giving broadband administrations.
Despite the fact that lessening in the cost of broadband administrations is great as presently being clamoured for by Nigerians, administrators ought not be constrained to overstretch ourselves with a specific end goal to diminish cost and after that bargain on the nature of administration. The nature of administration, which is fast broadband availability, must be kept up with a specific end goal to accomplish better consumer loyalty. The most ideal approach to address the issue of lessening in the cost of broadband administrations is for the controller, the Nigerian Communications Commission, to return to the issue of information floor cost and set a settled and adequate rate for industry information floor cost.
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