About two decades after the liberalisation of the telecoms sector and issuance of the first Digital Mobile Licences for mobile telephony services, the impact of infrastructure seems to be blighting the gains of what is now known as ‘telecoms revolution’ in the country, reports LUCAS AJANAKU
Esther Oseni had gone to attend the last Holy Ghost Night service at the Redeemed Christian Church of God along the Lagos Ibadan Expressway. For official reasons, her husband could not attend the service with the mammoth worshippers. A mobile phone would, therefore, provide the elixir for the momentary separation of the family.
But to her utmost shock, she could neither make nor receive calls as she would have loved to.
Most of the major highways across the country remain blind to telecoms services because of the shortage of base transmission station (BTS), which according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) ‘provides the connection between mobile phones and the wider telephone network.’
While the burdens of managing BTS have been largely transferred to the tower firms in the country, the need for more BTS has always been there, especially to improve the poor quality of service (QoS) of the operators.
Infrastructure gap
The Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof Garba Dambatta, Nigeria needs between 70,000 and 80,000 BTS to cover the entire length and breadth of the country and join the club of countries working towards making the Internet of Things (IoT) a reality by leveraging 4G and 5G networks.
Dambatta told members of House Representatives’ Ad Hoc Committee investigating the health implications of mounting telecoms masts close to a residential building in Abuja, that the country has less than 50,000 BTS.
“3G, 4G going to 5G networks are going to usher this country into smart applications, the IoTs or the smart world and cities we are talking about. And of course, because of the additional burden on infrastructure, the present capacity of telecom infrastructure is grossly inadequate to cater for these additional platforms or services we talk about’
“Therefore we will need between 70,000 and 80,000 base transceiver masts to be able to provide the effective capacity that is needed to deploy 4G going to 5G,” he said.
He urged other approving agencies at all levels of government in the country to partner with NCC to achieve the target. The United Kingdom (UK), with a population of 60 million people and about 250 land square meters already has close to 60,000 BTS.
Association of Licensed Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ALTON) is on the same page with the NCC on infrastructure deficit.
Its Chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, urged members of his group to increase the number of BTS from the current over 25,000 to about 75,000 to meet Quality of Service (QoS) mandates laid down by the regulator.
Cash for BTS
The Chief Executive Officer of IHS, one of the leading tower services firms in the country, Issam Darwish, agrees no less with Prof Dambatta. He said the country requires at least 50, 000 base stations nationwide to guarantee efficient telecoms services.
Darwish, in 2012 had said more than $12.5 billion was required to build more BTS across the country.
IHS Towers, arguably the largest mobile telecoms infrastructure provider in Africa, which controls over 16,000 BTS belonging to telcos in the country, said it spends N2.6 billion monthly on diesel, to power the base stations.
Myriad of challenges
Aside from the huge cost on fuelling, ALTON said the few available BTS are subject to whim and caprices of state actors, Area Boys and others who forcefully shut down BTS without recourse to law and national security.
Adebayo said the sector continues to writhe in pains over twin evils of multiple taxation and regulation. He also said the issue of the right of way (RoW) has remained a major sore point as approvals are usually delayed for infrastructure roll-out.
At the last count, Adebayo said there about 40 different levies and taxes imposed on the telecoms sector by state actors such as local authorities, agencies and many more.
He said the few BTS available are also subject to willful vandalism, stealing of generators, batteries, diesel and many other valuables.
His counterpart and President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Olushola Teniola, said multiple regulation/taxation remained one of the many obstacles facing the industry. Teniola said for example in Lagos, the model state in every facet, infrastructure roll-out has been stalled by the activities of Ibile Broadband, an investment firm of the state government. He said since former Governor Babatunde Fashola left, telecoms infrastructure expansion has been stalled.
Even with the adoption of the co-location model by telcos and sale of towers to tower operators among others, tower operators spend $80 million every month on the maintenance of towers.
The 25,000 towers actively in use by operators cost $3,500 to manage a tower housing three to five BTS while a tower housing a single BTS costs $2,750 to manage every month.
ALTON said it costs about N24, 750,000 to install a single BTS together with its tower, special antennas and two generators to power the station. This equipment is like the artery of in the human body system, responsible for pumping blood into the system in that it allows subscribers to make and receive calls seamlessly.
A Consumer Affairs Bureau official at NCC, Emeka Mojekwu, said power is one of the biggest challenges facing telecommunications operations in the country.
He said other issues such as security challenges; theft of equipment; transmission cable cuts; delay in securing approval for sites for new base stations; harassment by some government agencies especially at the state level, also contributed in various degrees to the problem.”
He said the regulator ensured that the siting of masts and towers shall take cognisance of provisions of the Act and be guided by provisions of the Collocation and Infrastructure Sharing Guidelines of the Commission in such a way as to minimise their number, protect and promote public safety, and mitigate adverse visual impacts on the community.
Access gap
Lack of access in 200 communities across the country is denying more than 40 million people access to telecoms service, according to the NCC.
Danbatta said the regulatory agency was working on an intervention that would bridge the gap in the communities at the fastest time possible.
“Access is very important. Talking about access, I do not know the experience in other parts of the world especially the Africa continent but here in Nigeria, we have 200 access gaps and we know where these gaps are.
“These access gaps deprive close to 40 million people access to the Internet. We need to look at what we can do to fast-track blocking these access gaps because unless and until we do so, many of our citizens will continue to live without access to the Internet, especially the right kind of internet connectivity.”
4G coverage
Despite the hype about the ubiquity of 4G connections by the telcos in the country, 44 per cent of mobile subscribers in the country are on 3G technology while only four per cent use 4G technology, according to Jumia Mobile Report which also showed that there is over 18 per cent 4G penetration in South Africa and 16 per cent in Angola.
According to the NCC, the country has more than 63million subscription on broadband while in the voice segment, there are 173million lines as at March, this year, which translates to 91 per cent teledensity.
According to the report, the country will be the only one in Africa to contribute 700 million new global subscribers by 2025.
Telecommunications and Information Services, a sub-sector of the ICT, contributed 77 per cent of the entire sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP). Overall, the mobile telecoms sub-sector contributed 7.4 per cent to the country’s total GDP last year, compared to 5.5 per cent in 2017.
Nigeria’s mobile broadband penetration is forecast to rise to 55 per cent of the population by 2025, with 70 per cent having 3G connectivity and 17 per cent having access to 4G networks.
The report noted that 5G network with the 26 gigahertz (GHz), 38 GHz and 42 GHz spectrum bands will be rolled out by 2020 while some 700 million new mobile subscribers from various countries across the world will push the total number of global mobile subscribers to six billion between now and 2025.
Nigeria has been identified among these countries, with others being India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, the United States (U.S.), and Brazil. “It is predicted that Nigeria will contribute four per cent of the estimated 700 million new global mobile subscribers, making it the only country in Africa marked with a significant contribution to increasing mobile penetration in the world. By this quota, it is expected that 28 million new mobile subscribers will emerge from Nigeria between 2019 and 2025, that is, an average of seven million new mobile subscribers annually, if the country is to meet its quota,” the report said.
FDI, GDP growth
In spite of the avalanche of challenges, total investments attracted by the telecoms sector to the country have reached $70billion with a huge chunk coming from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Danbatta said the sector remained “work in progress”.
“Since the Digital Mobile Licences (DML) were issued, investment in the sector has hit about $70billion from a mere $50million in 2001. Most of these investments are FDIs. Although we have made very modest progress in the sector, we still need to deepen investments to make broadband pervasive in the country,” he said.
He said the country remains the investment destination where there’s a guarantee of adequate Returns on Investments (RoIs).
“With over 150 million active subscribers, in the voice segment, over 102 per cent teledensity and a little over 92 million internet connections, Nigeria is indeed a place to invest,” he said.
According to him, the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for sustainable development said Nigeria now has about 21 per cent broadband penetration and conscious of the reality that broadband fuels faster data transmission speed and capacity, focus now is on how to attract the right investments to grow this critical area of the sector through broadband coverage expansion.
According to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the telecoms industry contributes 10.11per cent to Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of this year. This is a 0.92 per cent increase from the first quarter of the previous year. This year’s contribution is also 0.26 per cent more than the figure (9.85per cent) recorded in the last quarter of last year according to the NBS.
Job loss through regulation
Despite these, the Wireless Applications Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPAN) has blamed job loss in the sector on weak regulation.
Its President, Chijioke Eze, said granting permission to banks to sell recharge cards (airtime) has sent dealers and retailers out of business. He lamented that dealers and youths who used to eke a living along that value chain are now jobless.
Way forward
Adebayo and Teniola said Communications Minister Dr Ibrahim Pantami has a huge role to play in not only consolidating the gains of the revolution but taking it to the next level to create jobs in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s desire to lift millions out of poverty over the next one decade.
Adebayo urged a Presidential declaration of ICT as critical national, security and economy infrastructure so that the industry could be accorded the industry the needed protection.
Teniola wants the Nigerian Broadband Plan for 2019 to 2024 to be put in place alongside a coherent Nigerian Digital Strategy to be formulated for the period 2020-2030
“A review of NCC’ NCA2003 Act and NITDA’ Act to resolve overlaps and ‘digital’ related gaps evident in the regulatory space; a deeper collaboration with Ministry of Information concerning broadcast, telecoms and multimedia convergence regulations and creation of an ICT infrastructure bank/fund for the ICT industry.”