Telecom

Poor QoS Persists 19 Years after GSM Revolution

Published

6 years ago

August 1, 2020

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^{It will be 19 years this August since the introduction of the Digital Mobile Communications services popularly referred to as GSM in Nigeria.}

Poor QoS Persists 19 Years after GSM Revolution

^{The acceptance and growth rate among the Nigerian populace has had serious and great latent of enhancing the communication.}

^{Today, GSM phones beep in almost every palm, pocket, handbags, offices, parties, school hostels, beer parlors, every nook and cranny of the country.}

^{Aside the availability of telephony, the revolution also ended the monopoly enjoyed by Nitel and introduced competition by the various operators.}

^{Quality of service has not however kept pace with the burgeoning development in the telecom industry. It is much worse now than seven years ago when the revolution began.}

^{There are still complaints of bills for undelivered messages, charge for dropped calls , which increase the revenues operators but leave deep holes in the pockets of subscribers}

^{Equally, they complained that Internet service remained a challenge, just as much as uploading and downloading.}

^{As a matter of fact, all the telecom operators exhibit grave deficiencies in their service delivery from small to dominant operators.}

^{Deolu Ogunbanjo, president, National Association Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMMS), blamed poor quality of service on inadequate base stations in the country.}

^{Ogunbanjo said that United Kingdom with population less than Nigeria has over 60, 000 base stations while base stations in Nigeria is still under 30,000.}

^{He added that issues around ‘Right of Way’ approvals and closure of base stations by state government agencies have also impacted negatively on the quality of service being delivered by telecommunications operators.}

^{“There is need for more stakeholders’ engagement between Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), telecommunications operators and state governments to resolve socio-economic factors that are frustrating operators in deploying infrastructure for improved quality of service.}

^{“Operators need to build more base stations to improve capacity of their network with digital radio equipment,” Ogunbanjo said.}

^{In clear terms, operators lack capacity to meet the demand of subscribers and they have no apologies for that.}

^{Operators blame high cost of doing business, rising insecurity and widespread cases of theft of their vital equipment and so on for worsening quality of service.}

^{They also point at forced relocation of hundreds of kilometers of fibre optic cables as a result of road works as well as difficult access to sites and community relations troubles.}

^{Myke Offili, general manager commercial, Coloplus, telecommunications collocation services provider, agreed that network congestion is responsible for the poor telecommunications services been experienced by subscribers as pressure is on the network at the same time.}

^{He stressed the need for operators to expand their network through making available additional spectrum to them in line with ATCON position.}

^{He urged government to address the high cost of deploying network infrastructure as well intensify effort in educating the public on the impact of technology contrary to on-going misinformation about certain technology at the market place.}

^{Elsewhere, Oladipo Raji, group managing director, InfraFocus Technologies, attributed the poor network services to congestion of the network as a lot of people are accessing the network at the same time.}

^{“This means that we don’t have adequate capacity on the network. Everywhere in the world there are always two networks mobile and fixed networks delivering mobile and fixed data services, but in Nigeria we have put the two networks together and into one operator through universal licensing regime where GSM operators delver mobile and fixed data from one network hence the congestion.}

^{“If we had encouraged ISPs to deliver fixed data at home and offices while GSM operators deliver mobile data we would not have been in this situation. It is time for NCC to correct this mistake and segregate the market by licensing ISPs to deliver internet to homes and offices by this, jobs will be created as well,” he said.}

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Telecom

Aba to Host MTN’s “The Gathering” with Pitchathon Offering ₦5 Million Prize Pool for Emerging Startup Founders

Published

5 hours ago

June 4, 2026

Ugo Onwuaso

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MTN’s Youth cultural and lifestyle event “The Gathering” will hold in Aba at the Prime Event Centre from June 14 to 15, 2026, with a high-stakes Pitchathon designed to spotlight and reward the most promising early-stage founders in the city, offering a total prize pool of ₦5 million.

Aba to Host MTN’s “The Gathering” with Pitchathon Offering ₦5 Million Prize Pool for Emerging Startup Founders

The competition will award ₦2.5 million to the winning startup, ₦1.5 million to the first runner-up, and ₦1 million to third place, giving young entrepreneurs not just funding, but a direct platform to validate their ideas in front of investors, consumers, and industry stakeholders.

The Aba Pitchathon follows a highly successful Lagos edition of The Gathering on 100, which took place at the National Stadium, Surulere, from April 22 to 26, where eight startups collectively received ₦45 million in seed funding after pitching solutions across fintech, healthtech, agritech, edtech, and creative technology.

At the Lagos edition, Hurpham Africa emerged as the overall winner with ₦15 million in funding support, followed by Coconoto Ltd with ₦10 million and Rava Send with ₦5 million. Five other startups – URI Social, Dulces Jams, Kindly Book, Africa Medical Marketplace, and MyFund – each received ₦3 million, alongside visibility and MTN business ecosystem support.

Organisers say the goal is to deepen access to opportunity across Nigeria by taking The Gathering on 100 beyond Lagos into high-potential commercial hubs like Aba, where entrepreneurship continues to thrive.

Registration is now open via The Gathering’s official website. Entrepreneurs, builders, and early-stage founders in Aba and surrounding cities are encouraged to apply for a chance to pitch live at the event.

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Telecom

Meta Unveils AI-Powered Business Agent to Support Customer Engagement

Published

5 hours ago

June 4, 2026

Ugo Onwuaso

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Meta has unveiled a new artificial intelligence-powered tool, Meta Business Agent, designed to help businesses automate customer interactions, boost sales and improve operational efficiency across its messaging platforms.

Telecom

Digital Encode Calls for Immediate Action as Cyber Threats Escalate Nationwide

Published

5 hours ago

June 4, 2026

Ugo Onwuaso

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Digital Encode Limited, a leading information security and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) advisory firm, has issued an urgent cybersecurity advisory following a surge in security breaches affecting financial institutions, government agencies, fintechs, and other organizations across Nigeria.

Digital Encode

Cyber threat actors have recently exposed data purportedly from both private and public institutions in Nigeria, underscoring the growing need for stronger cybersecurity frameworks, proactive threat monitoring, and coordinated incident response measures.

But Digital Encode’s advisory highlights a troubling pattern: most recent cyber incidents are not driven by sophisticated zero-day exploits, but by preventable weaknesses in basic security configurations, credential management, and operational controls.

According to the advisory signed by Professor Obadare Adewale Peter, Chief Visionary Officer of Digital Encode Limited, attackers are increasingly exploiting misconfigured systems and publicly exposed assets, such as unsecured databases, open cloud storage buckets, leaked API keys, and critical servers exposed to the internet, many of which are easily discoverable through open repositories, cloud indexing tools, and even dark web marketplaces.

The advisory outlines critical areas of concern, including publicly accessible cloud storage exposing sensitive customer and operational data; hardcoded secrets in web and mobile applications, including API keys and tokens; leaked credentials in repositories and deployment artifacts; weak internal access controls and over-reliance on single authentication layers; exposure of administrative endpoints, API documentation, and development environments in production; uncontrolled use of Third-Party Hosting platforms such as Vercel, Netlify, and Render; poor token lifecycle management and weak authentication, inadequate vendor risk management and monitoring controls

Digital Encode noted that these vulnerabilities are widespread across organizations, particularly in financial institutions, payment service providers, Fintech companies and public sector platforms, where similar exposure patterns continue to recur.

Not a Technology Problem, But an Execution Gap

“Organizations affected in recent breaches were not compromised due to highly advanced attacks, but due to lapses in enforcing existing security controls, like, ensuring that no cloud resources linked to organizations whether AWS S3, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage, or Firebase allow anonymous access, Verify that no cloud credentials or API tokens are exposed in public or private repositories, container registries or deployed applications, and all external and internal APIs must enforce authentication and authorization controls at all times” Prof. Obadare stated.

The advisory stresses that most of these risks can be mitigated with readily available tools and best practices, underscoring a critical gap between security policy and implementation.

Urgent Actions Recommended

Digital Encode has called on organizations to act immediately by conducting a comprehensive audit of all internet-facing assets, including third-party systems; revoking and rotating all exposed or potentially compromised credentials including passwords, API keys, and access tokens; reviewing historical logs to assess the extent of any prior exploitation; engaging vendors to address third-party security exposures; fixing identified misconfigurations and validating remediation efforts; strengthening monitoring, logging, and threat detection systems; and documenting remediation steps and residual risks for governance and compliance.

The firm also emphasized the need for improved visibility into shadow IT and unauthorized deployments tied to employees’ accounts, which increasingly serve as entry points for attackers.

Call for Proactive Security Posture

Digital Encode reiterated its commitment to supporting organizations through enterprise-wide security assessments and independent validation of implemented controls.

“We strongly advise that this advisory be actioned without delay,” Prof Obadare warned, adding that proactive security hygiene, not reactive response, will determine resilience in Nigeria’s evolving threat landscape.

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