The improvement in access to telephones has had positive impact in virtually all facets of life, including political, social and economic activities, thus resulting in an exponential growth in the subscriber lines due to the widespread of networks across the country.
Currently, the growth and potential earnings accruable from telecommunication services in the country’s economy is comparable to other markets in the world, and the current rate of network growth across the country is impressive.
Quite a number of global technology corporations are extending their operations to Nigeria with a multiplier effect on the economy and international trade between Nigeria and other countries of the world and in particular the West African sub region. The result of this is more competitive market environment and high potential for wired line network service providers.
Moreover, a new report by Infonetics says that it expects operators to see a 6% increase overall in revenue from mobile voice, mobile broadband, and mobile messaging services in 2012. The highest growth in 2012 will come from Asia Pacific and Latin America, while the EMEA region is expected to see a slight decline due to cutthroat competition and economic turmoil.
Globally, the mobile services market is forecast to grow to $976 billion by 2016, with the bulk of the growth coming from mobile broadband services.
“The mobile world is undeniably shifting from voice to data, as mobile operators migrate as many subscribers as they can to data service plans and smartphones.
Already in North America and Asia Pacific, mobile operators derive over 40% of their mobile revenue from mobile broadband and messaging. But, while mobile broadband is no doubt the fastest growing revenue stream for operators, mobile messaging and voice aren’t dead just yet, not by a long shot,” notes Stéphane Téral, Infonetics Research’s principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics.
Téral adds: “The prophecies of doom for mobile operators’ SMS/MMS cash cow are being overplayed. Despite the popularity of over-the-top messaging applications like Apple’s iMessage and WhatsApp, our data shows SMS growing every year from 2012 to 2016, delivering a cumulative $1 trillion in operator revenue during those 5 years. And over that same period, voice revenue will decline only slightly, still making up a sizable chunk of operator revenues.”
Mobile data (text messaging, multimedia messaging, and mobile broadband) service revenue rose in every region in 2011, driven by an increase in smartphone usage. At more than a quarter trillion dollars in 2011, Asia Pacific generates the largest portion of mobile service revenue
Voice revenue dipped 0.8% worldwide in 2011, despite the growing use of voice services in China.
Mobile broadband subscribers will grow from 15% to nearly 40% of all mobile subscribers between 2011 and 2016.
According to another report released by ABI Research last week, the global volume of mobile data traffic will exceed 107 exabytes in 2017. This total traffic volume will be eight times more than what is expected for 2012.
Aapo Markkanen, ABI Research senior analyst points out that although the numbers may sound seemingly big, they shouldn’t be understood as yet another warning of the untamable data tsunami mobile operators often try to portray for regulatory reasons. Markkanen says, “It looks like 2015 will be the last year when the traffic volume will grow by more than 50% annually.
And that will happen despite of the fact that the monthly average per wireless subscriber, worldwide, will increase to almost 1.5 gigabytes by the end of our forecasting period.”
A lot of the overall data consumption will depend on how much of on-demand video content will in the end be delivered over cellular networks, so changes implemented by individual content providers may have far-reaching effects.
Netflix, for example, recently added to its iOS app a simple function by which users can limit their viewing to Wi-Fi only and thereby avoid overage charges. Besides accidental video streams, app downloads and updates are another activity that can be easily steered onto fixed networks.
Where are we
The number of mobile subscribers connected to mobile broadband internet has reach about 800,000 as at September last year.
Mobile Broadband is used to describe various types of wireless high-speed internet access through a portable modem, telephone or other device. Various network standards may be used, such as GPRS, 3G, WiMAX, LTE, UMTS/HSPA, EV-DO among others.
According to a recent research by Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) made available to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek through Mr. Ross Bateson, the association’s spokesperson, the figure represents 80 percent of total Broadband subscribers in the country which is put at 1million.
He said that mobile broadband is a key social and economic development lever, driving Internet connectivity and bridging the existing digital divide.
“The rapid rise in mobile data usage in Nigeria will yield major social and economic benefits as long as there is sufficient spectrum available to meet demand. These include connectivity for businesses and consumers not reached by fixed-line broadband networks and provision of new services, particularly in rural areas,” he noted.
Wireless Intelligence report says that mobile broadband has built good momentum across Africa, with over 7 million high speed packet access (HSPA) connections and an additional 440,000 being added every month.
There are currently 29 HSPA networks across the continent with a further five being planned, and there are four planned LTE networks. Mobile Broadband has proved most successful in Africa where transparent, non-intrusive regulation has been put in place to allow competition between operators.
Bateson urged the federal government and regulators to make plans for the auctioning of 2.5GHz spectrum to support the deployment of LTE technology.
“The Nigerian Government must also start to contemplate the release of low frequency Digital Dividend spectrum. This will be instrumental in ensuring rural areas of Nigeria benefit from high bandwidth broadband connectivity,” he added.