Can Nigeria leverage on World Telecoms day to service rural telephony quest?

President Jonathan

By Prince Osuagwu



 Telecoms role to world economy

Penultimate Sunday, this year’s world telecommunications day was quietly celebrated across the world. Those who  monitor the activities of world economies, also used the opportunity to reflect once more on the roles telecommunications development has played and the boost technologies have added to the world economic order.
Interestingly, this year’s theme, highlighted “Better life in rural communities with ICTs”, which was adopted by ITU Council in 2009, followed up in 2010 with theme “Better city, better life with ICTs”. In these themes, perhaps, lie the focus of many nations in trying to up their economic bases, using the instrument of Information and Communications Technology, ICT.
Also, the theme, may have not only provided emerging markets like Nigeria a pathway to solidifying their positions in world ICT standing but has also raised challenges on taking growth to the next level.
ICTs are increasingly in demand to meet the Millennium Development Goals. In the rural context, ICTs provide enhanced opportunities to generate income and combat poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy.
Half the world’s population , estimated at about three billion people, reside in rural districts and far flung communities. This half, represents the poorer, less educated, and more deprived cousins of the urban citizens. They are also among the least connected to the benefits of ICTs and therefore, should not be allowed to continue, that way.
As ICTs constantly reshape the way the world communicates, creating opportunities for a better life through long-term and sustainable development, it is most appropriate to connect such benefits to the most disadvantaged sections of the society.

Toure's 146th ITU anniversary message

In his message to the event which marks ITU’s 146th anniversary, Secretary General of the union, Dr Hamadoun Toure agreed that today, ICTs are the powerhouses of the global economy and offer real solutions towards generating sustainable economic growth and prosperity.

Toure

For him, ICTs also act as catalysts in accelerating progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
He said that “ICTs and related e-applications are key instruments in improving governance and rural services, such as providing community health care, safe drinking water and sanitation, education, food and shelter; improving maternal health and reducing child mortality; empowering women and the more vulnerable members of society; and ensuring environmental sustainability.
Toure frowned that among the estimated 3.5 billion rural residents, are as many as 1.4 billion of the world’s extremely poor people, who are also among the least connected to the benefits of ICTs, adding that the situation should not be allowed to continue as time has come for global action to connect rural communities to the opportunities offered by ICTs.
He further revealed that it was the reason ITU focused attention on the world’s rural communities in a quest to connect the remotest corners to the benefits of ICTs. “ITU is committed to connecting the world and to ensuring that the benefits of ICTs reach the remotest corners as well as the most vulnerable communities. I am proud to say that our work at ITU in developing the standards for ICTs, managing vital spectrum and orbital resources, mobilizing the necessary technical, human and financial resources, and strengthening emergency response in the aftermath of devastating natural disasters has met with unprecedented success as we enter the second decade of this millennium.
Toure however advocated for enhanced broadband access aimed at establishing the information and communication highways, saying they were networks that will feed both rural communities and urban centres with the means to meet their development goals and aspirations, drive content, even though mobile penetration has spread rapidly with over 5.3 billion subscribers worldwide.

Nigeria:Lessons from world telecoms day/Pyramid reports
Nigeria is one of the most competitive markets in Africa, with more than double the average number of operators in any other African country..
Leapfrogging from about 400,000 functioning telephone lines in 2001 to about 85 million in 2011, there may really not be many sectors in Nigeria that can boast of the growth rate attained by the telecom sector.

The Nigerian telecom market is also said to have generated about $8.2bn in service revenue by year-end 2009. Yet, this estimation serves as a 7.7% year-on-year decline from the previous year. This notwithstanding, the telecom industry has been known, since liberalisation in 2000, to experience high growth rates and with mobile penetration at just 48.9% by year-end 2009, it still holds tremendous opportunity for growth.

Telecom mast

However, a UK based research agency, Pyramid Inc, recently, released a report of its research findings on Nigeria’s telecom activities, to say that the sector will still remain Africa’s fastest growing telecom market over the next five years. The report however said that, this will be fueled by several new entrants, the launch of mobile value-added services, broadband services and by the eventual introduction of mobile number portability and mobile termination rate cuts. This is even as Nigeria’s telecom  subscriber based is expected to hit 100 million by 2012.
Meanwhile, the Pyramid’s prediction may have already started to hit the bull’s eye as the regulatory authority, the Nigerian Communications Commission, has not only announced readiness to implement the Number portability latest July this year, but has also promised to license more operators if the existing ones are not engendering enough market competitions that would benefit users. It has also began to implement  a special model aimed at aiding operators to easy deployment of broadband facilities in rural communities and towns across Nigeria.

Where Nigeria telecom Ops come in

Telecom mast

What this should tell the Nigerian telecom operators is that a new market should be created to soak the anticipated competition expected to force itself into the system and no other clear market can do that than the underserved and the unserved rural communities.

Unfortunately, apart from Airtel’s joint initiative with Ericsson and United Nations in the millennium village project and MTN’s recently launched Rural Telephony Scheme, RTS, other efforts are basically to cover the major highways and sparsely deploy base stations in few communities and towns.
While the millennium village project aims at fighting poverty at the village level through community led development, the MTN RTS is targeting to

cover about 850 Nigerian villages by the end of this year in an aggressive roll-out exercise that will gulp an initial estimated cost of about US$40 million in its first phase. The first phase will cover 350 villages  before the end of May 2011, while 500 villages will be covered in the second phase before the end of December 2011.

MTN distinguished this project from its regular coverage activities, by designing special base stations which does not require much of power or human management as most of the places they would be deployed are remote areas that have never had any form of telecommunications infrastructure before.. At least, that is what MTN Nigeria’s former CEO, Ahmad Farroukh said at the launch of the project in Lagos, last year October.
Farrouk also challenged his fellow operators to toe the line as there were much more than 850 villages and communities in Nigeria that have not tasted telecommunications for the first time.

If Farroukh’s call was not awakening enough, at least the telecoms day theme and Pyramid’s research findings have clearly pointed that the new market is in the rural areas and not in the almost saturated urban cities.