Gbenga Adebayo is the chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (Alton) and chief executive officer of Communications Network Support Services (CNSS), a leading outsourcing company in the sector.
 He spoke to chike 0nwuegbuchi on issues around poor quality of service in the industry among other issues in the telecommunications space.

 
Attacks on Operators’ Infrastructure and Closure of their Base Stations by Government Agencies
On continuous basis we are engaging stakeholders and the three tiers of Government.
The good thing is that it has appeared as a problem well known in the highest level of government.
Actually, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, honourable minister of Communications Technology is assisting us in the awareness and process of definition at the level of the Federal Executive Council.
 Thus, all parties are becoming more aware on the implications of multiple taxation and arbitrary closure of sites.
 It looks like we might be able to find a workable solution and to get things moving forward.
Last year, it was a difficult one for the industry, but we are thankful that despite the problems like the issues of willful attack on operators’ infrastructure, natural disaster-flooding, in spite of these, the industry survived the year.
The effort that went into network building last year, we expect will translate to better quality of service, provided the environmental problems did not rear their heads again.
That is, provided the arbitrary closure of sites, arrest of telecom workers will not continue and government can continue to provide us the needed socio-political support to operate in the industry.
We expect that efforts made in the recent times, like network expansion in the industry will translate to better services in the New Year.

Quality of Service (QoS) and NCC’s Sanction
It is not that our members are not doing the needful to improve on the quality of services, we must be aware that the Nigerian telecom industry is operating within our social, political and economic framework.
So, the industry is not immune to the challenges we face as a society neither is it isolated from the issues that we face.
For instance, the issue of access to sites, shortage of power supply, closure of sites, multiple taxation, among others, the problems are still there and whether we like it or not, no matter the amount we invest in equipment procurement, if you cannot get equipment to site; you cannot work on site without interference, or acquire location to install base stations, cannot acquire right of way to deploy fibre infrastructure or piqued by the problem of cuts on your fibre , there is no amount of money invested in equipment procurement that will improve the quality of service.
We must be aware that operators are investing heavily in equipment procurement both hardware and software.
The greatest challenge we face now is in the socio-political system, meaning that difficulty in access to sites leads to inability get things fixed.
Interferences in the network operations lead to poor network quality.
 Thus, to say the industry is not working stems from the framework of the happenings in the country. The problem affects every other sector of the economy.
What we need is to continue to remind ourselves that this industry is the driver of the economy and the socio-economic benefit of the telecommunication outweighs any other revenue that seems to be accruable from the sector.
Today, it has become the first means of contact by way of voice, data transmission to/and from Nigerians. Nigerians as we have rights to life so also right to telecommunication. Even though it has not become an issue of legislation, but the fact remains that Nigerians should have access and right to good quality of service.
When you continue to have these problems in our system, I am sorry; quality of service will continue to be a challenge.
Because even if you have the best of equipment, you can’t get them to site for deployment or integrate them on the existing network, no access to existing sites for maintenance, it lowers operations.
So, to tackle the issue of QoS in this country, it shouldn’t be seen as concern of operators alone. Agencies of government at all levels, landowners, the community people, virtually everybody has one contribution or the other to make.
And the earlier we allude to this fact as our collective challenge, the better. We can blame operators from now to eternity, sanction them, but without removing the social plagues that constitute clogs in the wheel of development, the issues will continue to be there.
 I must remind us that today telecommunication remains one of the most functional and reliable public segment.
If we compare it with any other sector of the economy, the telecom sector remains upbeat in spite of the numerous bottlenecks. So, we deserve every support to operate seamless networks.

Factors Hindering Operators from Getting To Sites
One is policies of government. If Local Governments are empowered to arrest trucks ridden with telecomm equipment and they are allowed to seize and dump them in their bay, which has it own implication.
 If an agency of the government is given the power to shut sown the site even when people are working; this happens more even in Lagos State.
Here they continue to shut down sites under one guise of revenue even in our modern Lagos.
When that continues to happen, of course you can’t continue to blame the operators.
These sites shut down may be due for maintenance or generators refueling.
So, when the site is sealed by the government you have no powers to reopen it in the name of refueling or to carry out routine maintenance.
Yet, the operators are blamed for poor quality of service. If you are bent on entering the sealed site, then you may be engaging on legal tussle with them.
We are advocating that the industry should be isolated from this kind of isolation; that on no account should anybody or agency of government be given the powers to seal up telecomm sites, because these are public infrastructure.
 Is it heard that an agency of government or someone wakes up to seal a PHCN sub-station?
Or in those days, go and close down a Nitel exchange. That is exactly what we are talking about. 
Today, we can count how many sites clamped down on by one Federal or State agency or the other. Even the Local Councils do that with impunity as though nothing can happen.
Until government at the centre comes to the rescue of telecom service providers the implication is that the penalty we pay for not meeting up with QoS, as we have been suffering, will extend to the people.
 I want to state categorically that no amount of sanctions will remove those barriers; government has to remove them.
It is when that is done that you can come and challenge the operators on quality of service. Aside that, every other thing amounts to rhetoric.

Indebtedness in The Industry
If you recall my interviews in 2005 and 2006, where I spoke on the fact that interconnects clearing houses will not eliminate industrial indebtedness.
And what happened today is a clear confirmation to that.
 If people have a culture of debts, bring in any kind of exchange or transaction method, they will continue to be in debt.
If a man could walk across the road to buy bread on credit, even as cheap as that is, with time he will have backlog of debts. People should do what is right. If you have enjoyed services, you must pay.
 If you have signed into contracts, you must respect the terms and letters of the agreement.
That will show you are a responsible person or organization. When people begin to default in their payment obligations, it goes to show that trading terms are not being adhered to.
So, the problem in the industry is worrisome, and I think it speaks in such a way that people are not attending to their responsibilities.
Particularly, they are debts for services rendered.
In some cases, they are services that have been rendered from which one party has received money; so there is no reason why people should be in debt. It is something we must take very serious.
If I am to suggest I would recommend criminal prosecution, especially for cases where it has been established that people or companies received value and accruable money from third party and failed to honour their first party obligation.
 There is no other way than to recommend criminal prosecution. In other words, people hide under the cover of corporate organization to perpetuate such act, by the time you go behind the scene to prosecute people who are behind the acts, unveil them, then people will be made to face their obligation with seriousness.
There is no escape route to it than people rising up to the occasion and get committed. Without that, we will continue to go back and forth. If you have issue of natural disaster, your site bombed, or your site was shut down, these are cases that are understandable.
 But basic things as pay your interconnect obligation, settle your contractual agreement fund, especially when you have received value there is no reason not to pay.
Then, we are not talking about delayed payment which can be administrative, the bulk of challenge lies on sheer negligence to adhere to signed agreement.
And we can’t continue to allow that as an industry player, because it speaks negative of even those that live up to expectations.

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Mobile Number Portability
Yes, the industry is ripe for number portability. We are here for more than ten years, deployed the best equipment, we have the expertise-human capital and the knowledge know-how.
We are ripe for number portability. However, I must warn, without eliminating the socio-political problems, number portability will not solve the problem of quality of service.
Again, without removing all the current barriers, quality of service will remain an issue with or without number portability. Reasons are that today co-location is the industry has embarrassed.
Then you have sites that are co-location sites accommodating multiple operators. They are in a particular site where some operators have for some reasons experienced disruptions; either they have been closed by some agencies of the government or access has been denied by some parties, such site suffers maintenance.
So, if you port from operator A to B if they are co-locating on the same site, the same problem remains.
If you want to change to sites where providers are co-locating and there are no redundancies provided, it will have no impact.
 For us to full enjoy the services, the features of services that will improve number portability should be addressed, without that co-location will just remain an administrative wish.
What will you do if you have multiple operators co-locating from the same site and you import from first down to fourth operator and they are suffering the same problem, or you have multiple fibre cuts that affect a particular region of the country, so no matter where you import they will all have the same problem.
Number portability is a good feature, and as an industry we are working with the regulator to ensure that we record success, but going back to the issues, without eliminating the problems that we face today, the process may not make expected progress.
Sanctions will not solve the problems. And we need to go back to the basics to solve the fundamentals.

CNSS and Outsourcing 
We provide network support for players in the industry. And today we are a leading outsourcing company in the industry.
Outsourcing is the way to go. It enables operators to face their core business and what is not core to them they can give to next core parties to handle on their behalf. We maintain infrastructure for players.
We handle contact centre operations. It is a win-win situation for everybody, because the operators have the challenges of optimizing the networks and we can deal with the immediate maintenance support.
Outsourcing is becoming a popular model even in the developed countries. And Nigeria now playing a leading role in telecom development in sub-Sahara Africa, I think that is going to show that we are joining leading industries in other economies of the world.