Favourable Investment Environment in Nigeria’s Telecoms Industry

By Chinedu Nwachukwu

It is an openly shared concern that the telecommunications industry should avoid the pitfalls of the petroleum industry. More than half a century after crude oil was discovered in commercial quantity in Nigeria, the bulk of exploration and production processes are still dependent on foreign technology and imported material.

People wish the nation to reap the full benefits of the telecommunications sector of the economy conferred by the economy of scale deriving from our population and market potentials.

Appraising mobile number portability

On Monday the 22nd of April, 2013, the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) launched the take off the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) scheme. The much awaited scheme at last came to be three years after the initial target set in 2009.

Top government functionaries and official of the NCC witnessed the launch. Among them were Mr Peter Igho, Chairman of the NCC Board, and Dr. Eugene Juwah, Executive Vice Chairman alongside other commissioners of the NCC, telecom stakeholders and officials of the various GSM companies in Nigeria.

The policy is in furtherance to the NCC’s objectives of protecting consumer interest through the development, monitoring and enforcement of compliance with regulations by telecom service providers in order to ensure better quality services, fair pricing and competition, and in line with the provisions of section 128 of the Nigerian Communication Act (NCA) 2003 which vests the NCC with the exclusive right to regulate numbers and number portability in Nigeria.

Juwah: Fighting battles on behalf of mobile telephone subscribers

Eugene Ikemefuna Juwah,
Executive Vice Chairman,
NCC

Eugene Ikemefuna Juwah is in ‘battle’ mood. The mood only abates towards the close of this encounter when I ask how he unwinds at the end of his expectedly busy daily schedules. That’s when his animated perspectives on mobile telephony are matched by the way he expresses his passion for television documentaries. But more on this later.

“Telecoms companies are now on their toes,” he says of the revolutionary effects of the recent decision by the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), of which he is executive vice-chairman, to implement the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) initiative. “Competition has broken their move towards oligopoly.” I spoke to him just a few days after the MNP launch.

Juwah insists the battle he is fighting is on behalf of millions of Nigerians who, since the global system of mobile (GSM) telephony erupted here a little more than a decade ago, have felt the preferred service provider as a millstone around the neck. People who felt they were not getting satisfactory service from one provider simply procured another SIM card, resulting in people buying several handsets. Manufacturers of mobile phones came up with sets that had facilities for dual SIMs in order to satisfy the demands of subscribers who would rather carry two SIM cards than lose their original numbers.

NCC: Raising the GSM pulse through lower tariffs

Although Nigerians have remained critical of mobile telecomm service providers because of the high tariffs as against the relatively poor quality of service, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the regulatory agency for the telecoms sector appears to be up to the task in ensuring a downward review of charges on voice calls and other services for users.

Whereas there has been an inflationary trend leading to the upswing of prices in all sectors of the economy, Nigeria’s mobile telephony sector has been a welcome exception as only recently, operators were forced to reduce the cost of the short messaging service (SMS) from about N15.00 (fifteen naira) per SMS to N4.00 (four naira) off-network and N3.00 (three naira) maximum on-network rates.

Of telecoms consumer rights and investment protection

Lately, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), as the telecoms industry’s regulator, has come down heavily on the country’s GSM operators. In November 2012, NCC banned telecoms operators from bombarding their customers with unsolicited messages in the name of promos, lotteries and advertisements. Before the ban, phone users had decried the excesses of service providers, whose abuse of market power and infringement of consumers’ privacy were all too disturbing.