Telecom

Why Nigeria’s Telecoms Sector Needs Government, New Regulatory Interventions

Published

7 years ago

August 16, 2017

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The Nigerian Telecommunications industry is currently considered a key sector that contributes to economic growth and one that can help lift Nigeria out of recession.

Obviously, the impact started at the point of liberalisation of sector almost two decades ago, catalysed and opened up the sector to local and foreign direct investment (FDI) estimated at over $68 billion as at November 2016.

It has created approximately over 2.5 million jobs over the past 10 years, its impact reaches across all industries and holds the potential to modernize multinationals, SMEs and their supply chains.

The sector continues to provide mobile banking services to help bank the unbanked, provides access to e-learning platforms to help facilitate training and development, and brings healthcare services to rural regions, via telemedicine and text message counselling, amongst many other services.

Until June 2016, the telecoms sector was growing rapidly and comprised 9.8% of Nigeria’s GDP but this growth has now stalled, with the sector at a strategic crossroads. Several factors have converged simultaneously, which could materially impact the industry and undermine its potential to drive economic growth and stimulate the Nigerian economy as a whole.

For starters, from a systemic standpoint, the current weakness in the local economy has resulted in relatively low consumer purchasing power and continues to place pressure on the industry and its operators.

The weak Naira has made the importation of much needed telecom equipment into the country difficult, and the upgrading of towers and service capacity expansion too expensive to conduct on a large scale.

Operators are now either deferring or delaying upgrades or expansion of their networks and customers are starting to feel the impact. Signal quality has been affected, incidences of dropped calls have increased, and overall customer service quality has declined. Nigerian consumers have every right to demand more and should never have to settle for poor network quality or services.

To further compound matters, consumers continue to move away from legacy voice services and are switching to data bundle packs, which allows them use over the top (OTT) service providers such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook to make phone calls inexpensively over broadband connectivity not minding the often poor quality of these services.

While it’s clear that the simple solution to addressing this trend is massive investment into telecom tower network densification, as new 3G and 4G technologies are rolled out, these network upgrades can only be done if there is adequate financing and a suitable business case.

Moreover, there is an ongoing data bundle “price war” between incumbent telecom operators and internet service providers; with a frantic race to deliver cheap gigabytes of data, for rock bottom prices.

On the surface, these prices appear good for the consumer in the short term, but in the long run, this price war will put many operators out of business, as these current bundled offerings are priced well below their actual costs to network operators.

According to Research ICT Africa, the price of data has decreased by over 65% over the past two years, squeezing margins and pushing smaller mobile network operators to the brink of collapse.

Short Term versus Long Term Gains
Artificially low data prices are designed to drive out competition. This type of practice is called “predatory pricing” in respect of which there are restrictions in many parts of the world. These pricing wars never work out well for consumers, as they typically result in initial temporary low service prices, just long enough to force out the competition.

Then, all of a sudden, the few remaining players monopolize the market and suddenly double, or even quadruple prices, as they are the surviving and dominant game in town. It’s easy to identify anti competitive pricing, as we know what it costs the telecom industry to secure internet bandwidth.

A good example of healthy competition which has led to improved quality and product service offerings is mobile phones. The competition between Apple and Samsung and others has forced all parties to constantly launch new and improved products.

Competition leads to fair market pricing which has enabled mobile phones to be purchased by the masses. The current problem in the telecoms sector is that we don’t have fair market pricing -the price of data bundles in Nigeria is presently amongst the lowest in Sub Saharan Africa.

While market forces drive the industry, governments and regulators must shape the mobile economy by setting the policies and regulations that will deliver a healthy, competitive and sustainable mobile sector alongside consumer protection for all citizens.

Feasible Solution
Given the tremendous potential that telecommunications has to jump start and stimulate the Nigerian economy at all levels, we need the help of government and regulators to play the role of referee and establish a level playing field.

Fatai Folarin, Tax & Regulatory Services Lead Partner at Deloitte noted that, “The telecommunications industry in Nigeria is one that can currently be described as self-aware and steadily adapting to the stark realities of business – changing trends, intense rivalry, regulatory uncertainties etc. There is a general understanding that to remain sustainable, there is a need to recreate existing products, diversify into new areas for which the capabilities and resources are near, improve on general business processes and navigate through the regulatory landscape.”

We recognize the free market principles of business and competition, but we also note the artificially low prices that are having a negative effect on investment and growth within the sector.

Both large and small mobile network operators are currently working to try and mitigate the current challenges related to squeezed margins, and in other cases generating losses, and lack of direct access to foreign currencies, with the smaller firms struggling the most to compete. Reduced competition will be a lose-lose situation for all operators, and the public as a whole.

The recent default status of Etisalat Nigeria, is a prime example of how it can all go wrong. Etisalat is the fourth largest telecom operator in the country, but as a direct result of the company’s razor thin margins on its current service offerings, and against the backdrop of the devaluation of the Naira, the company has failed to meet its obligations to its lenders.

Concerted regulatory efforts need to be made to ensure that all sides survive and the quality of service levels continue to be enhanced, by having the regulatory bodies insist the mobile network operators focus on additional customer metrics such as, measuring their signal reach, network uptime and improved quality of a data services.

A regulated price minimum price level will help stop the downward spiral of the telecoms industry and allow all telecom players, big and small, to compete on network service and customer service quality. Policy makers must therefore ensure that all current players survive.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) can issue more spectrum licenses and make up revenues when additional spectrum is auctioned and mobile network operators roll out into new rural areas.

We also need to consider the telecoms sectors as critical to our nation’s economic development and, as such, place the sector on the critical national infrastructure list

This important designation will give operators priority access to much needed foreign exchange and the procurement and purchase of telecom upgrade equipment for the networks.

In conclusion, mobile network operators serve millions of SMEs and multinationals that are dependent on internet access and other enterprise solutions – a half day service disruption results in large revenue losses for various businesses throughout the country.

It is therefore very important that the government, regulators and international institutions continue to define and refine strategies to increase growth and ensure the long-term sustainability of the Nigerian telecommunications sector, thereby also boosting investors’ confidence and signalling to the international community that we truly remain open for business.

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Telecom

9PSB Empowering Women Entrepreneurs, SMEs Owners With Agent Banking Opportunities

Published

13 hours ago

April 30, 2024

Chike Onwuegbuchi

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9 Payment Service Bank (9PSB), Nigeria’s digital payment service bank, focused on financial inclusion has reiterated its support to Nigerian women entrepreneurs and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises through its agent banking business opportunities that will scale up their revenue base and improve their standard of living at the 2024 South-West Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Emerging Market Emerging Market Summit and Expo.

The event themed: Women Entrepreneur as Catalyst for Sustainable Development and Economic Growth held at Lagos State Co-operative Federation (LASCOFED) aimed at training and empowering over 500 women participants on entrepreneurship skills and fostering market link and economic growth, had in attendance women entrepreneurs and SMEs owners across South-West region who have been using their skills and resources to make purpose driven contributions to the society.

Speaking at the event, the Chief Executive Officer, and Managing Director, 9 Payment Service Bank, Branka Mracajac, represented by the Head of Sales Distribution and Strategic Partners, 9 Payment Service Bank (9PSB), Kunle Isiaka commended the women for their resilience and viable contributions to their communities through the various initiatives and businesses.

‘’I am indeed very thrilled to see these amazons who have been breaking all barriers without limitation in all strata of the society, women are truly the bedrock of the society, when a woman is trained, a nation is of course trained, we cannot over emphasize the need for the women the be financially included, empowered, and given the required support to thrive.

It is understood that a reasonable number of the women folks lack the basic financial knowledge, and many are financially excluded from the formal financial system, this has impacted to an extend their means of doing business.

A report by EFInA states that at least thirty-eight million (that is, 36%) Nigerian adults still do not have a bank account but majority of them have phones, it also shows that four out of every 10 Nigerians are financially excluded, and they are mostly females.

In Lagos State, there are at least eight million adults between the 18 years and above who live in Lagos and more influents daily. Out of this number, 54% of adults are business owners or traders and 28% of them receive payment digitally. With this statistics, 9 Payment Service Bank is working and consolidating on these areas.

“In addition, 91% of Lagos adult females are currently financially served, 6% of women in Lagos have access to credit facility, while we focus on the 8% excluded Lagosian, although our license does not permit us yet to give out loans, but we are doing everything possible to ensure we support the women through our agent banking training geared towards women empowerment,” Kunle added.

“As a bank providing services to the banked and underbanked, we dwell on strategic partnership with other players in the industry because we cannot do it all alone, we have the mandate to drive financial inclusion and ensure that every household is financially included. Also, a robust agent network spreading across the country to facilitate financial transactions have been of tremendous progress.

“We have empowered over 18,000 agents out of which over 45 per cent of them are women. As we make progress in this journey, our Service Location Partners will continue to engage you at your various locations with necessary support to thrive as a merchant in the payment services industry,” he remarked.

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Telecom

Google Calls for Applications for Startups AI Accelerator Africa

Published

13 hours ago

April 30, 2024

Ugo Onwuaso

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Google on Monday announced the opening of applications for the 8th cohort of its Google for Startups Accelerator Africa program. This cohort will have a strong focus on startups leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to address critical challenges and unlock new opportunities across the continent.

Startups are the lifeblood of innovation, driving economic growth, creating jobs, and solving some of society’s most pressing challenges. In Africa, digital transformation is accelerating rapidly and startups play a vital role in shaping the continent’s future from fintech and agritech to healthcare and education.

The Google for Startups Accelerator Africa is a three-month, equity-free virtual program that provides African startups with mentorship, technical resources, and access to a global network of experts and investors. Since its inception in 2018, the program has supported 106 startups from 17 African countries, and have collectively raised over $263 million and created more than 2,800 direct jobs.

“We’re excited to support the next generation of African AI pioneers through the Google for Startups Accelerator, providing them with the resources and mentorship they need to build successful, impactful businesses” said Folarin Aiyegbusi, Head of Startups Ecosystem, Africa at Google. “Africa’s tech ecosystem is a hotbed of innovation, and AI has the potential to be a transformative force across various sectors.”

The Class 8 program will run from June to September 2024 and will include:

Equity-free support: Up to $350,000 in Google Cloud credits.
Mentorship: Personalised guidance from Google AI experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and industry leaders.
Technical workshops: In-depth training on AI/ML development, product strategy, and scaling.
Global network: Connections to potential investors, partners, and customers.
Community: A supportive network of fellow founders facing similar challenges and opportunities.

Applications are open from April 29 to May 20, 2024, and can be submitted online at g.co/AcceleratorAfrica. Eligible startups must be based in Africa or building Africa-centric solutions and should be utilising AI/ML in a transformative way.

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Telecom

MTN Holds Graduation Ceremony for MIP Cohort 2 Fellows

Published

13 hours ago

April 30, 2024

Ugo Onwuaso

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MTN Nigeria in collaboration with Pan-Atlantic University (PAU) held a graduation ceremony for the graduands of the second edition of its Media Innovation Programme (MIP) at the Lagos Business School, Lekki, Lagos on Friday, 26th April 2024.

Launched in 2022 in partnership with the School of Media and Communication, Pan Atlantic University, MIP is a six-month fully funded certificate fellowship set up to empower media practitioners and content creators to gain deeper insight into the ever-evolving media landscape.

Speaking about the benefits of the programme, Odunayo Sanya, Executive Director, MTN Foundation, said, “As fellows of the MTN MIP, we expect to hear of you, we expect to see you, visibly breaking new grounds, pushing the frontiers, and indeed setting very good standards.

“At MTN, this is our DNA, we do not leave people the way met them and when you look at our story, even as a commercial business, that’s the way it’s been.

“MTN has made a commitment to be a part of the sustainable development of Nigeria. We know we can’t do it alone, and that’s why we look for avenues like this and join hands to deliver transformation.”

The Dean of the School of Media and Communication, Pan-Atlantic University, Dr. Ikechukwu Obiaya, expressed his delight at the completion of the second edition of MIP. Sharing his congratulatory messages, he said, “Knowledge is power, but I’d ask this question, now that you have this knowledge, what are you going to do with it? You have all successfully completed the certificate programme which have consisted in a transmission of knowledge and knowledge as we know is empowering.

“But then knowledge could be useless if we do not apply it. So, I ask again, now that you have this knowledge what are you going to do with? I’d like to make a suggestion and that is to use knowledge to work towards change.

“We all complain a lot about the way things are and we could limit ourselves to those complaints, but the challenge is for us to actually make a difference in striving to improve the space in which we find ourselves. I don’t think any of us here will be able to change the world, but we can change the square-meter within which we find ourselves. Use knowledge to enrich the community.

“So while congratulating you, I also charge you in the goal of wanting to improve self, society and the particular space that you find yourself, I do hope that you will take up this charge to work with us in achieving these goals.”

Among the congratulations, the event’s highlight is inarguably the presentation of the award of excellence to two fellows, Chinenye Anuforo for Innovative Reportage on MTN Foundation and Abdulrasheed Hussain, Chairman’s Prize for innovation, who demonstrated diligence and hard work during their studies. The awards were presented.

Over the last two years, the MIP programme has proven to be one of the pioneers in training fellows in media and innovation in Nigeria. Through its capacity building, the MIP programme is posed to innovate the Nigerian media landscape.

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