ATCON Shows Concerns, Pushes for Secondary & Free Spectrum Market

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

In a speech presented during a visit to management of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Abuja on Thursday, Engineer Lanre Ajayi, president of ATCON, said that while  the members are delight over the positive development in our industry, which has been identified as the fastestest growing sector of the Nigerian economy, the association has some concerns.

ICT industry presently contributes more 8% to the nation GDP.

Ajayi who acknowledged that the success is not without the professional way the NCC has been regulating the industry, thanked the Commission for being steadfast and being professional.

"and we particularly thank the new management of NCC for sustaining the tradition of excellence in the organisation".

However, the ATCON president said that inspite of these positive developments, they would like to express a deep concern about how the frequency spectrum is being managed in Nigeria, not only by NCC but by other entities concerned with frequency managemnet, including the National Frequency Management Board (NFMB).

He said, "We 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 assingning to deserving operators.

"If such measure had been taken the mess that is being reported in the sale of the spectrum would have been avoided. We are also disturbed that NCC has not been able to assign spectrum to operators for a long while. Past attempts to assign 2,6 Ghz have failed".

To this end, the Association pushes for secondary spectrum market.

He said that ATCON holds the opinion that the Nigerian market is matured enough to have a secondary spectrum market.

"Presently, there is large number of idle spectrums in custody of some operators while numerous investors are yearning for spectrum to roll out services. Since it takes a lot of hurdles to retrieve such spectrum from the owners, it makes sense to allow such owners sell to new buyers who may have a need for the spectrum.

"These will benfit everyone concerned. It benefits the seller, who may have challlenges in rolling out after the acqusition of the spectrum. It benefits the buyer who now have spectrum to roll out services. It benefits the consumer who are now able to obtain services, it benefit Government who can take in more taxes.

"However, participation at secondary market should be limited to those who obtained spectrum through competetive bidding, like auction, to avoid a scenario where people use their contact to obtain spectrum from Government and sell in the secondary market.

On Free spectrum, he said, "As a strategy to attract small operators to unserved and underserved areas, we would like to recommend to NCC to make available some spectrum to operators for free. Big operators are mostly focused on commercial and very productive population centers.

"Small operators can easily mobilise to service small communities if appropriate incentives are given. Some countries in the world, including the United States, give unlicensed or lite licensed frequecies to operators to attract them to underserved or unserved communities and we would like to recommend this to NCC".

Ajayi said that this will not only ensure provision of services in those communities but also serve as a great opportunities to create jobs in the communities‎.