Nigerian CommunicationWeek

Spectrum Trading Attractive, Problematic- Taylor

CTO's Secretary-General Shola Taylor

Shola Taylor, secretary-general of Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), has called for caution among stakeholders as debate for and against spectrum secondary market, or spectrum trading rages on.

Taylor told Nigeria CommmunicationsWeek in Lagos recently that spectrum trading, though attractive, is still a very difficult issue, especially when the regulator is isolated in the process.

According to ICT Regulation Toolkits, “secondary trading of spectrum, permits the purchaser to change the use to which the spectrum was initially put while maintaining the right to use”.

Spectrum trading, viewed by many as the key step to be taken in the reform of spectrum management regulatory practice, is capable of unlocking the potential of new technologies and eliminating artificial scarcities of spectrum which find expression in inflated prices for spectrum-using services.

Recently, the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) ‎expressed deep concern about how the frequency spectrum is being managed in Nigeria.

Engineer Lanre Ajayi, former president of ATCON, said that while the members are delighted over the positive development in the industry, which has been identified as the fastest growing sector of the Nigerian economy, they are however worried about how the frequency spectrum is being managed, not only by NCC, but by other entities concerned with frequency management, including the National Frequency Management Board (NFMB).

The Association even accused NFMB of not been proactive with regards spectrum licensing as they “expected the NFMB to proactively discharge its responsibility. But that seems not to be the case in its handling of 700 MHZ recently sold by the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to MTN.

It was expected that when frequencies that were previously allocated to an agency of Government is no longer of relevance to that agency and such frequency has been freed, we expect an immediate re-allocation of such frequencies to other appropriate Government agencies for assigning to deserving operators

But, the CTO Secretary-General expressed a different view, adding that “as a regulator, you would want to know ‘who’ you are allocating the spectrum to and the intentions for requesting for it.

“There are cases where spectrum trading can easily be done. If a regulator allocates spectrum to a taxi company, where it is used to ‘wire’ fleet of taxies, the owner may decide to sell the company. At that point, he has to sell alongside spectrum. On the other hand, should a telecom operator decides to sell its spectrum to another operator, especially without the ‘knowledge’ of the regulator, it will not augur well for the sector, because such will create room for abuses. At the end of the day, the customer may suffer for it. It is important the regulator has an oversight on ‘why’ and ‘how’ the process is done”.

 
 

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