Category: Jobs

From the pure to applied social sciences, planning is a common denominator. For graduates in the financial services discipline and qualified chartered accountants and administrators, opportunities exist to earn a living as financial planners and advisors, reports Taofik Salako.

Financial planning is widely regarded as the livewire of every system-corporate or personal. In institutions, the roles of the accounts department mainly revolve around financial planning, to ensure proper cash-flow and liquidity to allow for the continuous operations of the institution, while simultaneously optimising and protecting the financial assets of the institution.

An otherwise “buoyant” and “healthy” company could become bankrupt overnight due to poor financial planning. This may orchestrate terminal distress and liquidation.

For individuals, personal financial planning is the key to sustainable living. Hallman and Rosenbloom (2003), define personal financial planning as the development and implementation of total coordinated plans for achieving one’s overall financial objectives.

Oftentimes, private wealth management is used inter-changeably with personal financial planning to underline the peculiarities of each individual planning for his/her peculiar situation.

While people’s financial objectives may differ due to their peculiarities, there are common threads that usually run through and these include, protection against risks, such as premature death, unemployment and disability; building up of strong capital base to meet current and future needs, tax and liability management, generational transfer of financial assets and sustainable management and investment of assets.

Personal financial planning cuts across cadres-from the poor to the rich, young and old, and thus is a sort of unending preoccupation of the people. That is why it is a selling topic, irrespective of the economy, population or location.

Unfortunately, people usually lack adequate knowledge of financial planning. While companies employ professionals and consulting firms to help with financial planning, personal financial planning remains detached, or alien to some, if not most people.

The question is, how many people really understand their pension plans?

How many people know their taxes and benefits, or how many people know about financial assets?

The knowledge and participation in most variety of financial instruments used in personal financial planning, such as shares, bonds, mutual funds, insurance, certificate of deposits, bank accounts, personal trusts and real estates, remain low.

For instance, SEC indicates that only 200,000 Nigerians out of a total population of about 170 million participate in mutual funds, otherwise known as collective investment schemes, while only some five million people participate in the capital market, less than three per cent of the population. Therein lies the opportunity for personal financial planners.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the apex capital market regulator, is spearheading a short conversion programme for graduates of various disciplines to train as personal financial planners. Just like the proverbial washman, this has the dual-benefit of cleaning off the personal ignorance and serving as sustainable source of personal source of incomes.

SEC is working through the Nigerian Capital Market Institute, its training subsidiary, and the Financial Planning Association to train graduates, certify them and attach them to fund investment management companies to serve as out-growers for the investment management industry and the capital market, in general.

Director-General, SEC, Ms. Arunma Oteh, said the commission believes that a short-term course in financial planning can make several graduates to be able to earn their living and reduce the excruciating search for paid jobs.

“We can train young people to become financial planners, may be those graduates from Law School, in economics among others, we can put them through a Booth-Camp programme and then prepare them to affiliate with some of these Fund Managers and to sell their products to investors. That is something that we are very keen to do because we think it will also help the job situation in Nigeria,” Ms.Oteh said.

According to her, training and working as a Financial Planner is a viable source of livelihood as investing and personal financial planning, are critical.

“First and foremost, what I tell everyone is that investing is very critical. If you are going to invest, you must have some level of familiarity on what you are going to invest in. Even if you have an expert that is helping you, you must be able to ask the right questions. So, my advice to people is to focus on building their knowledge because it is a skill that you will need through your life because saving and investing help you to raise your standard of living, to save for your retirement, to save for any health challenge you may face or to save for the education of your children. So it is a skill that people should learn about,” Oteh said.

She said there is enough potential for personal financial planners in the gap between the investing public and the Nigerian population as well as the depth and participation in the collective investment scheme (CIS) or mutual funds industry.

“Today, we have less than 200,000 who are leveraging into CIS funds to save and invest. There is clearly room for more to be done. We have about $1 billion of funds under management; that is very small for a country of 167 million people. So the potential is enormous,” Oteh said.

She said participation in mutual funds can be a way for Nigerians to leverage their incomes and build up a strong base against the waves of ups and downs that come with changing market situations.

“We are recommending mutual funds. Mutual funds allow you to invest a small amount, but to have the opportunity of investing that amount in several companies or several types of products. So, if you have N5, 000, you can buy a money market bond fund and that fund can invest in various treasury bills. Also, if for example you bought mutual funds that invest in companies, the funds can invest in banks, fast moving consumer good, construction companies, in an oil and gas company and so on, so that when there is a problem in one sector, the problem from that sector is balanced by the benefit that you are getting from another sector. That is what a mutual fund does for you; it allows you to reduce your risk by spreading it over several companies. If it is a mutual fund that invests in equity, it allows you to use a small amount and tap benefits in several areas. So, my guidance is that use mutual funds, you also take the benefit of financial experts. We have a number of such funds, about 44 of them and there is still opportunity for many more to come to be,” Oteh said.

Besides, such training in investment and financial planning also provides opportunity for others to earn additional incomes alongside their other jobs.

President, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Mr. Ariyo Olushekun, said there is opportunity for non-finance professionals to participate in the investment market.

Managing Director, GTI Securities Limited, Mr Tunde Oyekunle, added that the market has enormous potential that remain untapped.

Oyekunle, whose firm has built Nigeria’s first private trading floor, said ambitious young graduates can find opportunities in the ongoing innovations at the market.

I swear, I used to get hives at the thought of an interview until, by some twist of fate, the roles were reversed and I actually became an interviewer myself (wahaha – insert evil grin here!).

However, I’ve come to learn that, contrary to popular belief, the interviewer isn’t out to set you up for failure… who knew? So, as a show of good faith, I’ll give you some of my best learned secrets from the other side of the curtain. Here are six secrets for crushing job interviews:

Confidence: fake it till you make it real

The best advice I can give is to be confident and remember that you’ve made it this far for a reason. Hold your head up high, don’t trip, and remember, ‘you got this.’  Interviews are one of the few times in life where narcissism is accepted and maybe even embraced. Remember, there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance but during the interview process, you want a beautiful balance of both.

• Side note – if you’re naturally arrogant, then disregard my previous statement: For you I say, smile and sit down – you ain’t all that!

Be a stalker

Knowledge is key and Google is your new best friend.  Before you step foot in that interview, you should know everything there is to know about that company. Google it, Facebook it, and study their Linkedin page like you’ve never had anything better to do in your life. Also, if you’re lucky enough to know who’s interviewing you … stalk away, my friends. Knowledge is power, and we live in the 21st century where a simple Google search can make or break your ability to shine.

Read between the lines

Just about every last one of us has been asked, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” Funnily enough – curve ball coming your way here – we don’t actually care what you think your strengths and weaknesses are. The reason this question hasn’t been updated in 100 years is because it gives away so much about a person.

• Are they prepared? (Again, it’s been a question for 100 years… how did you not see that coming?)

• Do they have a solid grasp on their own abilities?

• It’s also really fun to watch how people try to turn their ‘weaknesses’ into a (not-so-humble) strength. This shows creativity, thoughtfulness, and an ability to turn negative things into positive.

• We know you Googled your answer … just so you know! But your ability to deliver and articulate is what’s actually key here.

Is your mind blown yet?

Wave your freak flag

Ok, maybe not literally – but subtly and just enough to stand out from the crowd and make the interviewer remember you. Maybe test this out on a few people and make sure you’re not too far out in left field. But if you grew up on a sheep farm (please withhold Kiwi jokes here as I am, in fact, a New Zealander!) or have participated in a triathlon, mention it when it feels right. Keep it short and sweet. Don’t bore them with details but show off that you have a personality and would fit well with their environment.

Don’t settle

Many people come into interviews borderline desperate to get a job. Whether it’s personal financial stress or this happens to be your dream job, calm yourself. It is every bit as important to be prepared for their questions as it is for them to be prepared for yours.

Don’t settle, you’ll regret it. Ever heard the expression, “Don’t gamble with scared money?”  Well, it applies with new jobs 10 times over. Don’t go into a job so desperate to be hired that you forget to stop and think, ‘is this really what’s best for you?’

Break a leg

Don’t forget to smile and breath throughout the entire process. It’s only an interview, it’s only a job. While it may be the answer to your prayers, or your bank account’s prayers, it’s still not the end of the world. If you’re prepared and qualified, the rest will fall into place. Que sera sera! (Whatever will be, will be.).

For thousands of youths roaming the streets for jobs, there are opportunities for them in etiquette training. The training can provide millions of jobs, if the jobless youth are ready to engage in it, writes Oluwakemi Dauda.

Job seekers in the country have an untapped area to look to for a better future: etiquette training.

They can get jobs by engaging in etiquette training or consulting, once they are ready for it.

For instance, Atinuke Badejo is the Publisher of EtiquetteBank.

The bank, she said, is a creation of ParkRoyal & Lagos Finishing School. See www.lagosfinishingschool.com for details.

The school, according to Badejo, is one of the leading provider of etiquette, ambassadorial, business and lifeskills programmes in Nigeria and the West African region.

The school is a free resource for our clients and individuals who want to differentiate themselves.

It is a ‘bank’ where the school makes regular deposits on issues pertaining to manners and etiquette for clients to make withdrawals at will.

“Our mission is very clear – We want to change the way people relate, in business, in society and we want to change our nation,” she said.

Findings revealed that an etiquette consultant or trainer teaches people how to speak and behave rightly in every aspect of life. He advises, and trains teens, adults, managers and company executives on how to conduct themselves.

He has wider areas of operations, making it easier for him to make money.

According to New York Times, etiquette consulting is a booming industry in many countries.

As an etiquette consultant, you can teach people the skills they need to succeed in business and in life. They will know the right thing to say or do courtesy of the training you give to them.

Etiquette consultants also have many career options. You could specialise in coaching adults or children on the subject. For example, with your help, the sloppy eater who used to offend people could be transformed to be the charming gentleman that everyone wants to invite to dinner.

Findings have shown that millions of people have got jobs either as etiquette trainers or consultants in developed countries, such as United States, Britain, Germany and even in Ghana, among others. Also, they have helped in improving the gross domestic product (GDP) of those countries.

Etiquette consultants are also paid a huge amount of money per day to present training programmes (seminars or workshops) on topics related to etiquette. For example you might teach telephone etiquette to customer service staff.

As an etiquette consultant, you might offer coaching or training programmes in all areas of etiquette, or you could choose to specialise in areas such as: Business etiquette (or corporate etiquette); communication etiquette; dining etiquette; international etiquette (or international protocol); social etiquette; wedding etiquette; and children’s etiquette (or etiquette for young people).

As long as you have the desire, you can become an etiquette consultant. No special education or experience is necessary to break into this career and succeed.

If you would like to be paid to provide etiquette consulting services, the FabJob Guide to Become an Etiquette Consultant is for you! In this e-book, you will discover how you can get started and succeed in a rewarding career as an etiquette consultant.

Experts have, therefore, advised job seekers in Nigeria to try etiquette training or consulting to earn a living. They said there are opportunities for people who want to go into it.

According to them, international etiquette requires that those in the protocol of big firms and government institutions are trained on how to behave with their clients or customers, while business etiquette deals with training.

A lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages, Lagos State University, Dr Maruf Animasahun said people have many career options to choose from.

He said irrespective of any area of etiquette training or consulting one is into, he or she would get jobs. He said its professionals could get jobs in primary, secondary and higher institutions, bearing in mind the high rate of moral decadence among students and the high rate of cultism among the youth.

He said: “As a consultant, you could specialise in coaching adults or children on proper etiquette. For example, with your help, a would-be cultist can be transformed to a gentleman. So, the job is very good and lucrative, he said.

“In developed countries, etiquette consultants are paid thousands of dollars a day to present training programmes (seminars or workshops) on topics related to etiquette. For example, you may be hired to teach telephone etiquette to customer service staff,” the don said.

He said more than half of India’s graduates take etiquette, manners and grooming classes making etiquette a growing industry of more than $60 million yearly.

Another expert, Ms Oyetola Fakoya said an image and etiquette consultant does not need an expensive office or retail location.

“You can run a home-based office and work with your clients in their homes or offices. A consultant does not have to work any set schedule. “You can work as little or as much as you wish. The greater your effort and commitment, the greater your success and financial compensation.

“You can help people to succeed and live better lives. A person’s image, manners and communication skills make the difference between mega success and average in their personal, social and business life. As a certified image etiquette consultant, you can positively make a difference in their lives. In addition to the knowledge and skills your clients acquire when you coach them, they will experience a leap in their confidence and self esteem.

“As an image, etiquette and communication consultant, you have the opportunity to earn whatever you want to earn. Some consultants in other climes charge their clients $100 to $250 an hour; some charge $500 an hour and more. While some work part-time, others make it their full-time career and earn high six-figure incomes.

“You can earn a great living by doing individual coaching-sessions, group-sessions, teaching evening classes at the local colleges, doing seminars in companies, writing articles and books, appearing on television and radio shows as anw expert,” she said.

Findings also revealed that an etiquette trainer can make more money than some of his high-powered clients. In addition to good manners, a successful etiquette trainer needs to know how to run a business and prepare for life as a contract worker.

However, high demand for etiquette experts means people with a passion for etiquette may reap huge rewards.

Identification

Most business etiquette trainers own their own businesses because corporations rarely need a full-time etiquette expert. Thus, etiquette trainers make money by finding clients, who may include anyone from students ready to enter the business world, to high-level executives of well known companies. Notable etiquette experts may teach seminars at business events and write etiquette books.

Average pay

The salary range for an etiquette trainer varies widely because success depends, in part, on the popularity of the etiquette expert and how much he works. Etiquette professionals in advanced countries often charge clients several hundred dollars an hour for one-on-one help. A highly regarded expert may earn thousands of dollars to teach at a seminar.

Your age, race, gender is not a barrier to your success as an etiquette trainer. You can become a successful coach anywhere in the world.

Quality of service (QoS) remains a knotty issue in the telecoms industry, more than 10 years after it was liberalised. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been pushing for better service, but subscribers hardly get value for their money. What is the way out? It is in improving power supply, says Ericsson Nigeria Country Manager Kamar Abass, in this interview with LUCAS AJANAKU. He believes that things will be better if the right decisions are taken, but he warns against barring operators from taking on new subscribers as this may be a disincentive to further investment.

What was the most remarkable development in the Technology industry last year? What should we lookout for in years to come?

The year 2013 was a steady year and there were a number of big formative things done to set the industry on a footing for growth which will continue and potentially accelerate in 2014. We ended the year announcing a major Managed Services contract with MTN. This is indicative of an important trend in the telecommunications industry which saw a number of third party support engagements announced. We are building a very formidable ecosystem in the telecoms space where we have major companies taking major parts of the undertakings that have been for a long time considered core activities by the mobile operators. There was a strong growth in the number of customers through the year. Operators gained a very significant number of customers last year and, of course, we saw quality of service staying top of the agenda and noted that operators are working hard to keep up with the demand.

Data remains to come of age in Nigeria. There are data handsets and, of course, 3G services out there. Each operator has a well- developed 3G offering and some exciting pricing but there is still some way to go in terms of full penetration and use of data which remains something that we look forward to in 2014. Our objective for 2013 was to achieve a stable and sustainable business for the future. We accomplished that, and when you see the results you will see what I mean. We were able to achieve a stable business that is sustainable for the future and that is a platform for us to service the major operators in this country and provide a wider service for them in the future.

Service quality has become a recurring decimal in the country. The telcos say they are doing a lot to improve service quality. Do you think their efforts have reflected in service quality?

We are the leader in second, third and fourth generation technology, 2G is predominantly voice in addition to something we call GPRS or EDGE which is lower speed data and we have provided that technology to many of the operators today (and so it’s an important part of their development). When digital telephony started in Nigeria in 2001, we were here and had operated successfully for many years, so we were a natural partner of choice for many of the operators. We continue to do valuable work for them today. Today, our business is more balanced between, on the one hand technology, selling hardware, and the other hand, selling services. There is a balance between the two businesses. So that is a slight change from where we were back in the early years but we expect both directions to grow. We will continue to provide hardware and services to our customers. In addition to that, we also provide counsel to our customers, the government, regulators about what is best practice in the industry. We share what we have seen work, particularly, well in other countries and how we see the best examples of what has worked in other countries being applied successfully to Nigeria.

Can you explain the impact of the evolution of technology form 2G to 3G and 4G or long-term evolution (LTE) on subscribers now that the industry is even talking about 5G?

Let’s start with where it was. I have often remarked about how I would walk 20 minutes to the telephone room to make a phone call home when I was at the University of Nigeria. These days, I find myself having my phone on my laps, so I do not have to stretch my arm to grab my phone. I think that is a wrong place for it, but that is the nature of how accessible it is today.

The fundamental part of mobile technology is that you now call a person not a place where you hoped that there will be someone in the vicinity of that phone. So, that is a big change. Nigeria where we talk and engage a lot. You will not be surprised to hear that the talking time in Nigeria is, in fact, among the highest in Africa It is roughly 150 minutes per SIM. It’s bigger in places like America where there is a different economic set up but 150 minutes is a very high number. So, in spite of what may seem as challenges, there is still very strong demand for services.

Growing to 119 million customers, the number for end of Q3, is a pretty formidable accomplishment. If we think back the days before 2000, teledensity never got into double figures whereas in the space of a mere 10 years even five years, there were millions and millions of people who had access to telephony. They could reach any one on the face of the earth with the handset in their hand. With all of that said, I think it’s worth stressing that many customers express a level of frustration.

What are the things involved in designing a network?

When designing the mobile network, you put in all the capacity you need for the most intensive demand. The point at which you estimate that demand will be highest is what you have to build your network for. For example, if everybody wants to have dinner at one time and there are 10 of you in the house, your dining table must have 10 chairs, but it means that apart from the once-in-a-month dinner for everybody, the table may not be fully used. That is the same for mobile networks. Mobile networks are dimensioned for the most intensive demand and most of the time that network is empty. I mean something like 20 per cent of all cell sites. It doesn’t matter which network. Somewhere between 20 per cent, at most, 25 per cent of all cell sites can be described as heavily used while the rest of the network is less heavily used. This is where the QoS issue comes in. Most times, it is really guess work. Well, educated guesses, guesses proven over time. But it is guess work about how you should dimension your network, and that is the challenge. And sometimes you see that there is a lot of density of people in a particular location, a lot of density in calling activity and then quality of service falls off. Unfortunately, it is those times that stick to the mind and condition our thinking.

There is this talk about legacy infrastructure. What is it about?

One of the real problems about where the QoS issue originates from is the legacy. When the licences were given, there was really limited backbone transmission. What happens is that, you decide where you want to cover and the next thing you do is build a transmission network so that information can travel from one site through a local hub, onto a backbone network and terminate on the other side of the extreme end. That did not exist in any meaningful sense, so it had to be built. MTN first built the Y’ellobhan, a microwave network until they encountered the difficulty with harmattan and the winds which obscure microwave and interfere with it. So, they had to start building fibre. But fibre has its own problems in a developing country that is fast changing. Fibre, all too frequently, gets dug up or cut among changes in the landscape and so that disruption is very significant.

Creating that transmission network and maintaining it remains a challenge till this day because fibre is not as readily available as people would like it to be, but also where it is available, it quickly gets undermined. But the other thing is that it is an enormous cost and an operational complexity.

When I worked in Europe, we managed spare parts for Vodafone. They had in the scope of the area we covered, about 80,000 to 90,000 cell sites across seven different countries in Europe. For each of those sites, we had to hold about six or seven spare parts for each site in stock. That means, we had somewhere in the region of 700,000 spare parts and a small number of those, about two per cent or three per cent of those sites required external power. If you think about Nigeria, 100 per cent of cell sites need alternative power source. In fact, most of them need an alternative for their alternative. So that means we are talking two diesel generators and extra batteries. That means that you consider having spare parts for all the cell sites, then you add on the parts for the generators, plus the fuelling of the generators. It just adds complexity to the point where this thing is so expensive.

Frankly, it’s a miracle that QoS is at the level that it is today because when one cell site goes down because of power, particularly 3G sites, all the other cell sites have to expand to fill the space. When they expand, they take up more customers and the site, therefore, suffers because the density of customers on the site is so great that they start having QoS issues.

These are the things responsible for the enormous amount of difficulties; lack of a backbone in place prior to 2000 and the need for the operators to build the backbone themselves, and secondly, the lack of power and many things going wrong. What happens when a fibre gets cut? Someone has to go there to fix it and in many cases, you need to go with security. There are some places you will not go to if the network goes down at odd hours in the night. You would have to find security, make sure you have the right spare parts, the right expertise to do the work before heading to the site. All of these work mean that there are multiple points where things can go wrong. There is an enormously demanding challenge which frankly, I think, the operators are meeting very well and the fact that you can bring any telephone into Nigeria, slip any SIM in and begin to make a call is a fantastic achievement looking at the time we have had to do this.

Are the factors outlined known to the operators? If yes, what has been your input?

Obviously, this is known to the operators and it’s being addressed because they are talking to us all the time about it. The problem is that the bigger networks have more points of failure and that means it’s a bigger and more complex job to do. MTN has about 10,000 base stations and that means 10,000 more points of failure. In fact, in every base station, there are about four points of failure and Etisalat has half the number of base stations and one third of the number of customers. Etisalat has a formidable challenge and they have done a very good job in building the network up to the standard it has got. Just that MTN has a bigger problem and they also have to think carefully because there are areas in the network that you have to judge; how much capacity do I need? How many customers do I need to serve at peak period? This is just the first issue.

The second one is how much service do the customers want to use each. What capacity do the operators want to give during the peak hour and that is based on what the customers want to do in the peak hour. These days, it’s a lot of things. They want to make a call, want to send a message on their Blackberry, follow a link, do some research on the web, look at pictures, and watch a movie on YouTube. All these have their bandwidth demands and the level of demand is growing so fast and the operators are running as hard as they can.

If somebody comes to us and says, build me a thousand sites, we will be able to say yes, but if they say build me a thousand sites in a month, however much we wanted to, it will be hard. Now in Europe, we can do 500 a week. But in Nigeria, we can probably do 1,000 may be 1,500 a year which is a challenge, because here, the roads are not easy to travel, getting things into the country is more challenging, so it is making the relevant people available, and we are training people as fast as we can. There is a maturity in the industry which will come and that maturity will give us more scale but right now, we are running as quickly as we can. We are all at the capacity of what we can do with the resources we have at the moment.

It is almost like a jinxed issue. How could the service quality issue be resolved?

To improve QoS, there are some basic things to do. If we can improve access to power, that will solve a lot of the problems. Many of the operators are already thinking about talking to the distribution companies (DISCOs) and doing something about it. If you think about Lagos and Abuja and a few other big cities, if we had dedicated generation facilities in those cities plus transmission to the cell sites which are mostly in urban areas, that will solve a significant part of the problem and, already, the operators are thinking about this. I am not sure how much they are cooperating among themselves but they are thinking about how they can work with the DISCOs and generating companies (GENCOs) to get more secure access to power for their sites because burning diesel is the most single inefficient way to generate power. If you have natural gas based power from power stations delivered to sites, that will not only improve your efficiency but it will improve your availability on the site and it’s much more cost effective too.

The second thing is in transmission networks. I think that the government is doing some very sensible things. There is a ruling on sharing fibre infrastructure and not simply replicating it which makes sense. I think there are some bottleneck areas where it is hard to get a cost-efficient price for access to fibre.

So, generally speaking, the open access arrangement is sensible because they provide for people to share. It is in a lot of people’s interest to have them share fibre because of the enormous capacity in it.

Power has been an issue. Given Nigeria’s peculiar environment, what sort of alternative energy would you recommend?

I would like to think that if the baseline is diesel generators, then I think that the easiest next step is really thinking about how to do a partnership with the GENCOs and the DISCOs to access power and then deliver them to the cell sites. In many of our sites, we have blue batteries which are high capacity batteries that hold the power for a long time without too many losses. In some instances, we can use solar. We are hundred miles north of the equator, so solar may make sense. For solar however, it is not very clever with the high capacity system. Solar is usually used where there are low energy base stations for small distances. We have not found solar to work effectively where you have got high demand of between 300 and 400 watts. You will need a solar panel, which is the size of a whole plot, to drive a full power base station and that just doesn’t scale.

For the small site, we call them rural coverage site where you want to cover two or three small villages. Then, you can put up a low power base station with a limited reach and that will be sufficient. You have that with the battery system. This solution uses about 40 watts compared to 10 times that for a full size base station.

Do you think deploying the LTE or 4G technology will address the problmes?

Yes and no. Actually, I think that the challenge is, one, that over time will be resolved. In Europe for example, one of the challenges is change in seasons. When leaves grow on trees, it impedes the signal and you have to go and tune the network and make some adjustments. So, you will always have problems with the network. It is a living, breathing thing that has to be managed right. You always have to manage the network. One of the important differences is that you go from 2G to 3G to 4G. These newer technologies, apart from allowing faster speeds for connection between your device and the downstream server, they use spectrum more efficiently. So, in other words, for a unit of spectrum, you can have more users on it and if you can have more users, then it uses the resources that the operators have more efficiently. That means higher yield from those and better opportunity for investment

LTE will aid operators in terms of the efficiency in which their resources are used. It also gives them the opportunity to get more yields from their networks and with the hope that they will be able to do something called re-farming, which is to re-use some of their existing spectrum which is being used today. So, there will be enormous improvement in efficiency; improvement in yield because of data for customers and that they are prepared to pay for a higher speed data that benefits the operators. So it’s a good thing. It’s not about the technology per se, but about making sure that the networks are optimised to give the best customer experience.

The reality about customer experience is that the person it affects the most is the operator. When a person cannot get through and doesn’t make a call, that unit of time in which they could have made that call is lost forever. When a call gets cut off prematurely, there are many instances when that call is not replaced and that is lost revenue.

In Etisalat’s network, they made a change of vendors and they mentioned that they made an extra $10 million in a month due to just that change. So, they get it and they are taking the steps to get the right vendor and technology and are keen on maximising QoS.

Spectrum is said to be the oxygen of telecoms industry and its management, therefore, is vital. What is the place of efficient spectrum management in the whole of the equation?

If you want to move spectrum from 2G to 4G, you have got to have a sensible volume of 4G customers and today, there is a tiny number of 4G devices that are accessible that the mass market can embrace. The devices that I have seen are several hundreds of pounds about 700 pounds (roughly N180,000). There are iPads that will do it, but we are still talking about several hundreds of pounds. 4G devices are at a premium and going into mass market is a long way off. Today, the operators have tens of millions of customers on 2G, why would they move away from those customers just to serve say 10 to 20 or 30,000 customers who can access 4G? For the moment, having these tens of millions customers on the 2G network is the most efficient use of the spectrum. If they had 10 million customers asking to use their phone on the 4G network, I am sure they would listen. But for today, 2G and 3G are still a lot better use of the spectrum.

With more than 120 million active subscribers, people say the regulator should halt the sale of and activation of new SIMs and consolidate on what is on ground for a while and stabilise the network. Do you subscribe to this line of reasoning?

This is a very controversial point you have made. When the operators bought their licences, they paid $285 million each. When that investment was made, some investors would have put up the money in the hope for a return in a fair market, a market where the rules are known and understood. They go out into the market prepared to be judged by their customers and they are also prepared to suffer the consequences if they do not satisfy their customers. The reality is that mobile number portability (MNP) gives customers the choice of moving from one operator to another if the QoS is poor.

If an operator consistently neglects its customers’ interest, it will ultimately fail and that law of the market is good enough for most. To have artificial constraint placed is really dangerous because on the one hand, it punishes mobile operators for some problems which are many times beyond their control; it also robs them of the incentive to invest because they suddenly feel like this is a regime that they cannot rely on its laws. They have to face the challenge of somebody changing the laws half way through. We could also face a situation where operators are not willing to invest because they are not allowed to take customers on when they can.

What I think the regulator must do is to tell operators what is expected of them and that needs to be in the laws; that people need to operate in this way. I think what they have done about MNP is excellent. It gives all the operators the message that whatever your customers are experiencing on your network will be the judge of whether they stay or not.

Another thing the regulator has done is that it has set key performance indicators (KPIs) which are published. So, people can see what is happening not just in terms of dropped call rate, call hold times but they also see what is happening at the interconnect point where Etisalat hands over a call to MTN or MTN to Airtel. This is an excellent way of saying to the people: let there be no doubt, if you have any issues with QoS, just go and look and see what your operators are doing.