Amid global concern about 5G technology deployment, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has braved the odds to be the first telecoms regulator in the West African sub-region to provide the regulatory and technical platform for 5G trial. MTN also becomes the first operator to leverage the platform created by the regulator to carry out Proof of Concept (CoC) trial of the technology. LUCAS AJANAKU writes on the challenges and benefits of this important milestone in the country.
Like a dammed river suddenly losing its fetters, the telecoms sector liberalisation about two decades ago has unleashed phenomenal growth in the country. While mobile subscription has crossed the 100 million mark, foreign direct investment (FDI) has reached over $75billion.
The regulator of the sector, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been on the vanguard of the transition from the first generation (1G), to 2G, 35, to 4G and now to 5G.
When the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof Garba Dambatta assumed responsibility, he rolled out what he termed the eight-point agenda covering 2015-2020.
The new vision is in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s change mantra “to promote innovation, investment, competition and consumer empowerment in and on top of Communications platforms of today and the future-maximising the power of Information Communications Technology (ICT) to grow our economy, create jobs, and enhance national competitiveness through the deployment of broadband infrastructure to facilitate rollout of broadband services that will hold out opportunities and higher network quality of service for all Nigerians.”
The eight-point pillars rest on a tripod of ‘A’s which include Availability, Accessibility and Affordability of service. He listed the 8-point agenda to include: Facilitate Broadband penetration through provision and optimisation access to and use of affordable fixed and mobile broadband in Nigeria; Improve Quality of Service by promoting the availability of reliable, interoperable, rapidly restorable critical ICT infrastructure that are supportive of all required services; optimise usage and benefits of spectrum by maximising availability of spectrum in order to provide diverse and affordable ICT services and ensuring that spectrum acquisition does not distort marketing competition; promote ICT innovation and investment opportunities. By this, ICT innovations will be promoted in ways that improve the nation’s ability to compete in the global economy, increased investment in youth and promotion of SMEs for new business delivery breakthroughs. Others include facilitate strategic collaboration and partnership with relevant stakeholders to foster ICT for sustainable economic development and social advancement; protect and empower consumers from unfair practices through availability of information and education required to make informed choices in the use of ICT services; promote fair competition and inclusive growth by creating a competitive market for ICT services that foster fair inclusion of all actors in innovative ways that facilitate new investment, job creation and consumer satisfaction; and ensure regulatory excellence and operational efficiency through effective regulatory framework, efficient processes, strict compliance monitoring and enforcement efficient management of internal resources and structure and maintain a commitment to transparency.
Non-commercial 5G trials
Ahead of the 2020 launch of the 5G services in Nigeria, NCC last week in Abuja supervised the execution of the PoC trial of 5G telecom services by telecoms giant, MTN Nigeria.
The demonstration took place at its Regional Office in Maitama Abuja, and was witnessed by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ali Ibrahim Pantami; Chairman, NCC Board, Otunba Olabiyi Durojaiye; Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta; Chairman MTN Board, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe; Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Telecommunications, Hon. Adeniyi Adeyemi and his deputy, Hon. Unyime Idem; former Secretary for Health, Interim National Government (ING), Prince Adelusi Adeluyi; National Pension Commission (PenCom) pioneer Director-General Muhammad Ahmad, and many other stakeholders.
Chairman of MTN Nigeria, Ernest Ndukwe thanked the Federal Government and the Minister for the support so far demonstrated in ensuring the deepening of the impact of telecoms in the country.
Danbatta said: “In line with our participatory regulation approach, we will consult widely with stakeholders in developing the right regulatory framework for 5G rollout in Nigeria. We are not oblivious of the global concerns around 5G network security vulnerabilities and we will be working with our parent Ministry and security agencies to develop measures to ensure a high level of cybersecurity of 5G networks.”
NCC had set aside and dedicated specific spectrum bands to network operators for the trial of 5G telecom services, preparatory to the commercial launch of 5G in Nigeria by 2020.
The non-commercial trial of 5G gives concrete expression and credence to NCC’s commitment to ensuring that Nigerians can access all variants of telecommunications services as they unfold and in line with their needs.
MTN Nigeria acknowledged the remarkably critical role played by the NCC in creating the regulatory platform for an early trial of 5G technology deployment in the country.
Its Chief Technical Officer, Mohammed Rufai, who spoke at the second trial of 5G technology by MTN, conducted at MTN Office, Etta Agbor Road, Calabar, Cross River State recalled NCC’s proactive regulations. Rufai said: “We thank all the stakeholders and our partners, especially the telecoms regulator, NCC, for making the birth of this 5G revolution journey possible with MTN as pioneer telecom company in this aspect.
“MTN had worked with the NCC in all the stages leading to today’s trial in Calabar to let stakeholders see the huge potential, possibilities and the connectivity available to transform all aspects of our life through 5G technology.”
During the 5G demonstration, MTN focused on how 5G gives a better experience to customers in terms of capacity, speed and latency.
Rufai, who conducted the test trial affirmed that 5G gives highly impressive throughput and speed quality unmatched with what consumers currently enjoy on any 4G networks in Nigeria.
“As you can see, the speed on 5G network is 10 times the current Internet speed being enjoyed on 4G networks,” he told the audience.
The NCC delegation to the 5G trial in Calabar was led by Assistant Director, Spectrum Administration, Kenneth Uzoekwe who stated that the NCC will continuously drive regulatory initiative that will put the country on the cutting edge of digitisation for increased value creation and bringing fresh perspectives in productivity to the citizens.
What is 5G?
‘5G´ is the fifth-generation cellular network technology. The industry association 3GPP defines any system using “5G NR” software as, “5G”, a definition that came into general use late last year. Others may reserve the term for systems that meet the requirements of the International Telecoms Union (ITU) International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT)-2020. It will drive virtual realities, augmented realities, streamed Blu-ray quality video, driverless cars, drones and Internet of Things (IoT) all of which require an extremely accurate and near-instantaneous transfer of large quantities of data.
Prof Dambatta said there are three 5G usage scenarios which are enhanced mobile broadband applications, low ultra-reliable, low latency applications and the Machine to Machine (M2M) application.
“I think in our part of the world, we are looking closely at these key areas of usage scenarios. The one that African countries will subscribe to quickly is the enhanced mobile broadband application. The reason is for this is that African countries are trying to roll out broadband infrastructure for broadband applications. So, this will spur us to ensure we put in place the necessary infrastructure. ”
Setting stage
Preparatory to the launch of 5G in the country, the NCC had been driving broadband penetration through the licensing of six infrastructure providers (InfraCos) across the geopolitical zones and Lagos, encouraging robust broadband infrastructure upon which new technologies such as 5G, will ride.
In the last quarter of this year, NCC had a workshop with the global body, the Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA) in Abuja where issues on how best the regulator can unleash 5G technology era for the country were discussed along licensing and technical areas.
Another is the reservation of spectrum for the roll-out of broadband services. The NCC has reserved about three which are in 26 gigahertz (GHz), 38GHz and 42GHz. “These frequencies exist and we are not licensing them for any other application. We are waiting in anticipation for the standardisation process to be completed at the World Radio Communication (WRC) in Egypt and then we can see how we can go forward with licensing process in the three frequencies,” he said.
He said another important step is to address new forms of social and regulatory anxieties occasioned by 5G, adding that to address these, as it’s the practice, every service deployed is normally preceded by PoC trial.
“The whole idea behind the trial is to be able to see what the challenges are. Security challenges, levels of radiation power density, whether this is within the acceptable limits provided for the international non-ionisation radio regulatory agencies as well as to ensure whatever factors that we need to come to terms with preparatory to commercial deployment of services are identified in readiness for the commercial roll-out of services using 5G.
Role of infrastructure
Without pervasive infrastructure, the dream of the rollout of 5G services will remain just a dream. Aside from the InfraCos initiative, the NCC has put in place an excellent initiative of spectrum trading which stops people from hanging on to a spectrum that’s not going to be put to use to deploy services. The spectrum can either be traded, leased or transferred to another operator.
“This has resulted in ensuring optimum utilisation of this important resource. The bottom line is, of the 3.7 billion unconnected people of the world, one-third of this population resides in Africa. The real challenge behind connecting this large population of Africans is an infrastructure deficit. And until we address the challenge we don’t see the situation improving and affording our citizens access to not only 5G services but other services that may come upstream.
“Another area that we can concentrate on is attracting investment. No government in Africa will be able to do it alone. Governments in Africa are concentrating on the provision of essential services. So telecoms services are capital intensive, the infrastructure required, the cost of bringing in new equipment to drive new services.
“So, the approach recommended by the ITU is that this should be done using that famous private-public partnership (PPP) model that we know, where investors coming in will bring in some investment in the country while the private sector in the country will provide some counterpart funding to drive the deployment of these services. I think this will be a solution especially in the countries where the market exists like Nigeria where you have 200 million people, the market is there waiting to be explored for provision of services and getting positive returns on investment. So, as we try to move the African continent to the next level, we must adopt suitable models that will drive investment into our sectors.”
- To be concluded tomorrow
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