Over a decade ago, the Federal Government embarked on rural telephony, a brainchild of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). After contracts were awarded for the project, the government suspended its implementation. With telecoms operators’ reluctance to roll-out services in rural areas, the need has risen for a rethink of the project, writes LUCAS AJANAKU.
When she left Lagos for Obuno Village, near Igbo Ukwu in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State to celebrate the Yuletide, Omeihe Oluoma promised her friends and colleagues in school to keep in touch with them through the telephone.
An undergraduate of Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Lagos, Oluoma was shocked when she got to the village and could neither make nor receive calls. “When I was leaving Lagos, I was full of excitement that I was going to spend the Yuletide with my people. I took my mobile phone along and made sure I did not forget the charger in Lagos. Since I was not going to be available, I felt I could keep in touch with my friends and colleagues in school both in Lagos and outside it. So, I made sure I had enough ‘credit’ on my phone,” she recalled.
She was, however, disappointed when she got home, because she reach her friends.
“After trying several times to make calls without success, I checked the screen of my mobile phone and discovered that there was no network signal at all on the phone. I asked my cousin who had earlier arrived ahead of me what the matter was. He was the one that told me that telephone services in the community still remain a luxury. He directed me to an uncompleted two-storey building where people queued up to make calls at a particular point where an operator’s network signal strayed into the community,” she said, adding that it was a nasty experience.
Peter Okechukwu (not real name), a Lagos-based computer engineering technician based at Computer Village, Ikeja, had a similar experience to share. Like Oluoma, he had left Lagos for the Yuletide and had travelled with his three mobile phones. An indigene of Ikpa Eluama Village, Osina Town in Ideato Local Government Area of Imo State, he was shocked to find out that more than 10 years after the ‘telecoms’ revolution,’ his community was still living in the backwaters of civilisation.
“I use virtually all the GSM service providers. When I got to the village, only one of the service providers was relatively constant. The others were flippant and very unreliable. As a matter of fact, the network signals of two of them (MTN and Etisalat) were only available about 1.00am. So, if any Short Message Service (SMS) was sent to you in the day, it will be delivered about that ungodly hour of the day (1.00am),” he said.
According to him, MTN recently installed a Base Transmission Station (BTS) in the village, adding that the ability of MTN customers to enjoy the facility is contingent upon the contiguity of the customer to the Base Transmission Station (BTS). “You must walk close to the BTS before you can access the services of the firm. It is strange but it is just the truth,” he said.
Even in Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria, some communities are either not served at all, or under-served. Olympic Agboola, a resident of Ajasa Community, a Lagos suburb, says telephone services in his community has been irregular. “It is magic to us in this community. Sometimes, there will be no signal at all. I think the capacity is still not sufficient. There is need for more investment on infrastructure,” he said.
The experience of Oluoma, Okechukwu and Agboola are, but a few of what several thousands of rural dwellers pass through. For them, the telecoms revolution meant nothing as it has failed to bridge the digital divide.
Nigeria is, no doubt, a huge country. According to recent figures from the National Population Commission (NPC), the country’s population stands at 167 million. It is against this backdrop and refusal of operators to invest in providing infrastructure to rural communities that the rural telephony initiative of the Federal Government becomes imperative.
According to figures from the NCC, subscriber figures hit the 109 million mark at the twilight of last year. Majority of these subscribers live in the urban areas, while a huge number of the rural populace remains underserved, or not at all. Therefore, the next frontier for expansion is obviously the rural areas where there are still more than 58 million willing but unconnected potential subscribers.
Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Eugene Juwah, said between 2001 and mid-2012, investment inflow into the nation’s telecoms industry increased from $.5million to over $25 billion.
According to experts, community telephony will encourage the growth of the agricultural, extractive and manufacturing industries in the rural areas.
Minister of Agriculture, Akinwumi Adesina, said the ministry is partnering with the Ministry of Communications Technology to make about 10 million mobile phones available to rural farmers in the country to boost food production. Through this initiative, tractors, fertiliser, seeds and other farming inputs will be transmitted to the farmers through an e-wallet.
Launched in 2001, the first phase of the project was to cover 218 local government areas and provide over 636,256 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) lines in all the council areas to bridge the digital divide.
The project was divided into three phases, and was estimated to cost $200 million. Key Communications Limited, Suburban Broadband Limited, Voicewares Network Limited, Gicell Wireless Limited and Hezonic Limited, were involved in the project, while the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concerning the project was signed with a Chinese firm.
The implementation of the project would have complemented the ITU’s initiative to connect the world with technology by 2015. According to ITU, the Connect the World (Connecting the Unconnected) project by 2015 aims to mobilise human, financial, and technical resources for the implementation of the connectivity targets of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the Regional Initiatives, adopted by member states at the ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference.
The project was finally suspended in 2011. Aside the suspended rural telephony initiative, an intervention, like the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF), established by the Communications Act of 2003, is geared towards promoting and facilitating ICT infrastructure in rural and under-served areas across the nation. It is expected to promote private sector investments, encourage competition, and give priority to self-sustaining programmes and projects. The USPF gets funding from the contribution of mobile operators who contribute 2.5 per cent of their profit to enable access to rural communities. With this kind of initiative, it is baffling why a large number of villages in the nation were yet to benefit from any form of telephony access.
But the trend has been for telecoms operators and investors to put a higher rate of investments in the urban areas and a lower margin in the rural areas. To bridge this gap, telecommunications and Internet services need to be deployed more to the rural areas, since it’s certain that the next phase of the telecoms communications growth will come from the rural areas.
Director, Regulatory Affairs, Etisalat Nigeria, Ibrahim Dikko, struck the right chord recently when he challenged the Federal Government to look for ways of funding the provision of telecoms infrastructure to rural areas as members of his constituency would not do that because of low returns on such investment
“The government would have to find ways to subsidise rural infrastructure build, because operators most times, invest in areas that they consider commercially viable,” Dikko said.
The Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has urged the government to synergise with telecoms operators to resuscitate the moribund National Rural Telephony Project.
Its President, Lanre Ajayi, said this was necessary since the government had been unable to implement the project while the rural communities had yet to feel the impact of the phenomenal growth in the telecoms sector.
“The Federal Government should support telecommunications providers to reach the under-reached and unserved areas through the USPF. In the implementation of rural telephony, government should provide operators stable power supply, accessible roads and improved security of telecoms infrastructures.
“Opening up the rural communities through integration into the national telephone networks will enhance exploitation of the economic potential of the communities and improve the standard of living of the rural dwellers,” Ajayi said.
MTN, had in 2010, launched a rural telephony initiative in partnership with equipment vendor, Huawei, in Lagos. How this initiative has improved telephone penetration in the country is not clear.
