Keeping GSM operators on their toes

By Duro Bamidele

Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection suggests that ‘life is a competitive struggle to survive in the midst of limited resources’. Darwin declares that: “living things must compete for food and space. They must evade the ravages of predators and disease while dealing with unpredictable shifts in their environments, such as changes in climate”. Darwin also posited that within a given population in a given environment, certain individuals possess characteristics that make them more likely to survive.

Telecoms sector growth is no fluke

By Olatunde Akinfemiwa

It has long been speculated that Nigeria’s telecom sector is a significant contributor to the nation’s gross domestic product. One refers to the development as ‘speculations’ because there was never a comparative sectoral assessment as the ‘rebasing’ of the nation’s GDP undertaken recently by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). An appraisal of Nigeria’s GSM sector has simply been based on the sheer array of opportunities by way of direct and indirect jobs, income, business opportunities, small scale enterprises and sundry avenues it has provided for a large section of the population. In the main, some of the statistics peddled about the sector have been simple guess work. But the picture has changed.

NCC: Promoting operator-consumer interface

By Mathew Ayorinde

Many users of telecom services in Nigeria hold the belief that the general poor quality of services is a deliberate act on the part of the operators to rip-off subscribers and maximise profits. This has accounted for the trend whereby the average working-class citizen and entrepreneur own more than one mobile phone or multiple subscriber identification modules (sim cards), the number portability option notwithstanding.
Against such a background, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has often stated its determination to mount pressure on telecom operators to offer optimal services to their subscribers.

Can NCC extend a helping hand?

By Sopuruchi Nnaemeka

Survival of the fittest has gone beyond Darwin’s principles of natural adaptation to being the driving force of entrepreneurship. Competition for scarce resources, which in this case are the factors of production – land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship has been quite exhausting for Nigeria’s small telecom companies.
This therefore calls for concerted effort on the part of the sector regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to device a survival strategy for small operators. Although this appeal may seem preposterous as this is in no way part of the commission’s mandate, it is nevertheless in good fate, considering how the sector has grown in leaps and bounds and how the fringe players could actually fill those gaps and plug the holes left by the big operators.

NCC: Anticipating the broadband boom

By Okechukwu Okonta

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah, has told the international community to expect a broadband boom in the Nigeria’s telecoms sector. He gave the promise during his presentation at the sub-Saharan Africa Regional Summit at the GSMA Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain. According to Juwah, the success attained with the voice services will be replicated in the Nigerian broadband market.

The best is yet to come for telecoms – NCC

Mr. Tony Ojobo,
NCC Director Public Affairs

By Adebola Ojikutu

Since its inception, privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation in 1999, Nigeria’s telecom sector has made monumental progress and contributions to the nation’s economy. From a mere 1 percent and less than a million analogue lines as at 2001, there has evolved an escalation to about 170 million connected and 128 million active mobile and fixed telephone lines, bringing teledensity to about 91 percent of the total population.

The sector has attracted about $30 billion in foreign direct investment with an average 15 percent growth per annum in the last decade. It has created about ten thousand direct and an estimated two million indirect jobs while opening up various channels and windows of opportunity for small and medium scale entrepreneurs.

Still waiting for the telecoms bill

By Raymond Akubo

Chief Okechukwu Itanyi
Executive Commissioner,
Stakeholders Engagement

For the umpteenth time, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on the National Assembly to speedily bring to conclusion the bill that seeks to protect telecoms infrastructure as critical national assets.
The executive commissioner, Stakeholders Engagement in the commission, Chief Okechukwu Itanyi, made the call recently at NCC 2014 Legislator’s workshop with the theme:  ICT Infrastructure as Key Driver for Economic Development: What Role for the Legislature, held in Lagos.
Itanyi who represented the executive vice chairman of the commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, stated that the theme of the forum was apt as ICT has become the foundation for rapid economic development in the world and Nigeria could not afford to be left behind. He said the commission is concerned with the adequacy of telecom infrastructure to drive broadband penetration.

Fixed telephony operators lose 50% of active lines in one year

Written by Ben Uzor Jr.

Fixed telephone operators in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy by GDP, lost more than 56 percent of their active lines in the past one year, according to data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

The protracted crisis engulfing the first national carrier, the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), has contributed immensely to the dearth of fixed-line services in the country.

Reps pass NCC’s N54.4b 2014 budget

Hon. Mulikat Akande-
Adeola, Leader,
Nigeria House of Reps.

Written by Victor Oluwasegun

The 2014 Appropriation bill of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday scaled through second reading stage in House of Representatives.

The bill which was presented on the floor by the Leader of the House, Hon. Mulikat Akande- Adeola was unanimously passed when its Deputy Speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha called for a vote.

The bill is for an Act to authorise the issue from the Statutory Revenue Fund of the NCC the total sum of N54,443,967,000

NITEL, Starcomms, Intercellular inactive – NCC

Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), Starcomms and 12 other telecoms companies have been declared “inactive operators” by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

The declaration means the affected companies will no longer contribute to the NCC’s periodic subscriber information.

NCC tasks govt agencies on cybercrime menace

Written by Bode Adewumi 

To stem the growing menace of cybercrime in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is seeking a multi-stakeholder approach to combat it.

Speaking in Lagos at the just-concluded National Cybersecurity Forum 2014, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said the global economic loss due to cybercrimes and cost of system repairs as a result of several online attacks runs into billions of naira yearly.

Nigeria: Maximum Traffic On MNP Platform

In just about 14 months, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC introduced the Mobile Number portability, a huge traffic of over over 87 thousand is recorded on the system.

This traffic represents a steady adoption of the service and underscores the level of poor network among the operators.

The traffic includes the number of telephone lines that have ported from one network to another since the launch of the service. In fact the official figure is pitched at 87,887.