Charles Anudu, managing director, Swift Networks Limited is a versatile entrepreneur.
Anudu with a wealth of national and international experience, has worked; traveled; and consulted widely in Africa, Europe and North America.
Today, he seats on the driver’s seat of the leading broadband telecommunications services provider for converged voice, video and data access services to business and consumer subscribers.
He spoke to peter ugwu on industry issues.

Significance of Swift Networks Study on Broadband Subscription
The study hinted on the usage pattern of certain customers. What that survey shows is that 80% of the customers essentially do light load work like email and basic web surfing, wherein only 20% are the real heavy duty users.
They are the people who download a lot of videos, stream content and that shows either their life style or how their business is structured.
The results are consistent with what is obtainable in other markets. It is usually the trend, where you find few people using most of the network resources.

The Determinant Factors of the Rates
What that study has helped us to resolve is that a lot of customers would want a flat rate plan; that is rate-fixed-for-all.
But that is wrong because if we go by that way 80% of the customers will be subsidizing for the rest 20%; that is the heavy users.
So, we thought that it will be an injustice. The consequence is why we are doing meter and pricing.
Because for some people they will just pay N4,000 for the month and it will be enough for them, while for others N4,000 is enough even for a week.
But by adopting metering and pricing we are fair enough and equitable in charging our customers.

The Study and Impact of Services on Recently Acquired 4G Business of DoPC
Not directly, because the statistics is the same no matter the size of network. What we have seen with the acquisition is that we have become a bigger company.
As a result we are building a bigger and more resilient network; will be faster and be able to have more people and serve them more.

Can Any Network in Nigeria Boast of Fast and Efficient Internet Services?
Today, there are about 13 companies in Nigeria that can render internet services. I want to point out that this is in an industry still in its early stages.
The truth is that the supply is still chasing demand, because the demand is there.
Again, to supply the market is really a problem, because we are having a lot of challenges.
When the internet is slow it is a combination of so many factors. It is either the back-haul fiber has been cut.
For instance, a customer situated in Iyana Ipaja clicks to browse, within few seconds that packet has to come to our centre situated in Victoria lsland.
In moving from Iyana Ipaja to VI there may have been a fiber cut. Usually what we do is to have a redundant hoard.
So, instead of that packet, request or query going through Iyana Ipaja to Ikeja, Surulere to VI it will be routed through Ikeja-Ikorodu-Epe_Ajah, before connecting VI.
Remember a back-haul would have been designed to carry a fraction of the total traffic now carries everything.
Other way to visualize it is to imagine the third mainland bridge is closed; people will still move but they will move quite slower.
Or there is a heavy rainfall and Western Avenue is flooded, most of the routes there will witness a lot of traffic gridlock.
So, we are still battling with a lot of things. Sometimes we have community issues; situation were ‘Area-Boys’ (touts) go to drain the diesel at the base stations.
Of course, when it goes down, the modem tries to run to the nearest base station. In the process, they congest the base station that is standing.
Sometimes, the fiber linking the base station is vandalized. In other words, there are burdensome reasons why internet may be slow, not just that the company prefers to suffer the subscribers. Although, I would not totally absolve the operators from every blames, some of us deliberately congest the network.
The major concern is that there are a lot of challenges the industry is facing all along the way to render that service.
Do we have plans to solve them? Yes, we do. That is why we are building bigger, resilient networks.
We are deploying both fiber and micro-wave at the same time, so that when the fiber falls there will be something to rely on.
Everywhere you go there is digging going on in Lagos. People are digging, sinking pipes to draw water to his residence.
They dig across the fiber and it takes a while to identify and repair. The issue is that the customer does not know what is going on there; he/she wants to get connected on a click of buttons/keys. If it is a microwave and somebody goes there to drain the diesel in the generator or steal the generator; because experiences have shown that in some cases, these boys to the site with a crane to steal the generators.
If that happens, the microwave is paralyzed until you bring in another one. Or naturally where the generator through wear and tear breaks down; these are some of the issues we are battling. People should be assured that the industry is really doing a lot.

Advertisement

National Assembly Legislation on the Protection of the Telecom Infrastructure
Again, for us it is not as bad as with some others in the industry in the sense that most of our sites now are on lease basis.
We own just a fraction of sites. So, the companies with larger sites witness the challenges more. The industry has also taken the message to the media, jingles on radio stations to educate the people.
Because any base station that is down impacts on both the community and the operator. To the people, a child may be sick and needs urgent attention, when there is not connectivity that raises a lot of emergency issues.
To us, when the site is down we lose resources. It is when a subscriber is connected or makes use of the data or voice that you can say you are in business.

What Are Your Roll Plans via DOPC Infrastructure?
Very soon we will roll-out; hopefully, it will not exceed the last quarter in 2013. Presently, works are on-going to cross the Ts and dot the Is.
We are optimistic that all needed to be sorted out before that time would have been taken care of. First and foremost, we are a company that likes to take on a particular thing and do perfect on it. Presently we are concentrating on giving our current customers a better experience, by pumping more capacity into the current Lagos market.
After that we will be stepping out of Lagos to replicate the same good job we have done in Lagos. The idea is to make sure whatever market we are entering we provide quality service.

Assessment Nigeria’s Telecom Industry in the Last 2 Years
Given the environment, it is not easy to do business here. I am sure the Minister since the creation of the Ministry of Communication Technology, has been quite generous to acknowledge problems of the industry.
Currently, as we read in the press, there are over 1, 000 applications for base stations that are been delayed by states and local governments.
That is the political structure of Nigeria; separation of powers. And you find out that different States have different levels of bureaucracy and unfriendliness to the industry.
Some see the industry as the only way they could make money to run the administration.
A lot of the youths see it also as one way they could make money without looking at how telecommunications service pave way to develop their communities.

Would You Say That Operators’ Interest Have Been Protected Overtime?
Not enough, because we need some sorts of legislations to protect interests of the operators. The infrastructures are critical and depict national infrastructure.
Ideally, if you have a problem at home you should be able to call for help. And not been able to make that call could lead to a matter of life and death.
Let not talk about the economic consequences-social, psychological, problems that could come from the problems of the networks not working seamlessly.
Meanwhile, Nigeria has moved from a state of nothing to something amazing. If we could recall the time NITEL had only 400, 000 fixed lines, but today, everybody-the plumber, the wheel barrow pusher, the pepper-seller and even the house-help has a phone.
That is a very big improvement in the first instance. I must say that the GSM and CDMA operators have done fantastic jobs.
And within such a short time, they have deployed infrastructure of international standards. Not minding that before you could secure a land-negotiate with the community or the family, buy the land, secure Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), get all sorts of permit, then you could design and build. The industry has really done a lot and should be acknowledged.
It has not been easy. Look at the teledensity, you can see the industry has done a lot. Yes, there are still more work to do, especially in the areas of quality of service (QoS), cost, but the cost of rendering the service today has also been very high.
The issue of quality could come in two ways: sometimes we the operators get greedy and overload the base station.
However, very importantly, there is a lot of vandalism going on that affect the QoS. And I must tell you, it is more on the side of vandalism.
On the cost, every base station is run on generator, because there virtually no public power supply. These are the factors affecting the QoS and the cost.

How Then Can the Industry Achieve Maturity, Curb Death of Companies?
Well, companies die for several reasons. Like I said earlier, we operate in a very hostile environment.
Telecomm business is like a real estate business in terms of the operational cost. Nobody can do this business with his own money.
So, as a smaller company that borrows at 20% interest rate per annum, to build the network, what will be your fate? First it is difficult to borrow. Secondly, most of the fund would go to the providers of the finance.
Then the question:  why not put in equity and provide shares? That one is not just easy, because you have not really proven yourself.
Otherwise, a lot of people will have apartheid for it. The smaller ones also find it difficult to attract competent workers. I am sure that most of the high caliber candidates would want to work for the big names than the smaller ones when the offer comes.
Unless you are ready to pay more the big names, forget it. There is a problem with the operators themselves; some of them have very lousy management.
And even if you have all the money and the people, but the management is wrong, then the business is bound to fail.
Nonetheless, it is natural in every industry; it is not peculiar to the telecoms. I am certain that if you look at your street there are a lot of tailors coming up and shutting down, a lot of supermarkets coming up and shutting down. It is a normal trend in business; it is part of life and common in a capitalist economy. 

Advertisement

How Has Swift Network Been Able to Withstand the Tide, And Plans To Reach Other Cities?
Definitely, we hope to roll-over to the whole Nigeria. Nevertheless, we have to be very realistic. Swift is a company that is realistic.
Moving to other parts of the country is something we should have done yesterday; we would have liked to embark on that.
Meanwhile, the question is do we have the people to go all over the country. This is a very young telecom industry where young engineers that understand modern telecom mechanisms are very young as well. A lot of them left school in the last 5-7 years ago.
Before now telecom industry resided with NITEL and that technology is obsolete today. It is also because if we were to do this business in another country the towers would have been there, but here the tower companies are also struggling to find land to build. So, it is not easy, overtime these things will improve.
And for us to go out there, build the towers by own selves, doing everything these are the things that eat-up working capital, as a result, instead of moving to five cities you are forced by circumstances to stay in a city.

Swift Network’s Market Share and Promotion of Local Content
Talking about market share, the trust also is that we do not know. The reason is that NCC is not yet measuring broadband internet connection as it does for voice.
Maybe when that information is available it becomes easier to know. Talking about money spent we do not discuss that, because money spent do not really indicate efficiency.
That you bought a jacket for N20,000 does not mean I cannot buy it for N5,000. It depends on our ability to negotiate and place of purchase.
On the local content, we are providing the platform for the local content to thrive. Because without the connectivity whatever content you have will remain with you or you cannot reach others.
Particularly the YouTube users or maybe you want to access other local videos that would not be achieved without the platform.
What we are doing essentially is to provide last mile infrastructure to enable people access local content wherever they maybe domicile.
On our own, we are also looking at encouraging local content delivery to the customer base.

Guiding Factor in Choosing Internet Service
What we have seen is that 60% of what customers by in Nigeria when it comes to internet subscription are by word-of-mouth.
People are likely to go the way to buy what a friend, family members or colleagues are using. Most times, they could not take into consideration whether it works well. That has driven the choices.
And because the operators are pushing capacity out, tying to overcome the travails, more people tend to follow suit by way of embracing what they are told.

Swift Customers in the Nearest Future
Swift Networks as a fibre and wireless based Telecommunication Company, we are in the business of telecommunication to render services to enterprise and consumer clients to empower them to do and achieve more.
We want to bring to them telecommunication as a way of enhancing their life style or business. Simply put, to add value to whatever the enterprises and consumer clients are doing, that is our core business. So, they should expect Swift to get swifter.
It will get more resilient and reliable.
We appreciate the way the market has embraced us. We assure the market that we will not let it down.
And that is why we acquired our competitor in order to combine our assets in order to really give true broadband in and efficient manner.

Advertisement