Building Capacity to Sustain Telecom Growth

The telecom sector is presently undergoing speedy transformation on account of explosive growth and rapid infrastructure development. The liberalization of telecom sector along with increased competition among players have brought substantial benefits to consumers in terms of lower subscription rates and enhanced choice.
In line with the escalating education and business in the country, the demand for Internet services will soar as businesses need new mediums to get exposure on the global map. Supported by forward-looking government programs, the country is all set to become one of the leading Internet markets in Africa in terms of users, international bandwidth and services offered.
As the country prepares for this explosion in telecom development, the importance of capacity building needs to be stressed. While technology and infrastructure always seems to be at the forefront, it is what you do with access that matters. What is the essence of technology? How important is human growth? Developing a knowledge driven economy means people must come first. Progress today is propelled by a combination of knowledge, technology, and most importantly people. Are people using ICT to create wealth? Is ICT being deployed by individuals and organizations to conserve foreign exchange and reduce foreign dependency?  Where is infrastructure taking the people to? Technology on its own can do nothing. It is people that will determine the growth and impact technology will have. It is people that will determine how ICT is used in the economy and in society. Answers to these questions will determine the direction the sector wants to go in future, either to continue with the growth pattern or development of the sector.
The question is do we want real development or we are satisfied with masquerades posing as solutions? Are we to remain spectators or active participants? Then human resource development must be high on the agenda. It must be top priority. It is people who will create, operate, run, support and manage the technologies to improve their lives and the environment. Where are we on the human capital scale? Can a nation be a knowledge society giant simply by investing in infrastructure? People are the focus of development. There are pockets of access and things may have improved. But to assess quality, we must know what proportion of the populace utilizes knowledge of the benefits and opportunities offered by ICT. Access means availability. But how deep is the penetration and can there be value without participation?
The great improvement in access to telecoms in the country has had a positive impact on virtually all facets of life in the country, political, social as well as economic. Government's interface with the citizens is now faster, people now contact their folks in most parts of the country from anywhere instantly whenever they wish and clients now easily reach their various service providers such as mechanics and tailors, all thanks to the telecommunications revolution.
Ownership of phones now cuts across the various social classes, opening good opportunities for the e-health, e-education, e-security, e-commerce and e-banking in the country.
The outstanding growth in the telecommunications sector has correspondingly created a significant number of new jobs in the economy. Also, other sectors such as advertising, real estate and finance have gained tremendously from the ripple effect of the growth in this sector. Today the telecom sector is a key contributor to the nation's Gross Domestic Products (GDP).
Skilled manpower issues
Aside building of infrastructural facilities required to deliver telecom services, building skilled manpower is also necessary for development in the sector. Presently, in spite of establishment of Digital Bridge institute and other related institutes in the country offering core telecommunications courses, the sector is largely dominated by foreign expertise especially in the technical areas. Indigenous manpower in these areas are attempted by good working conditions outside the shores of this country and thereby consistently creating vacuum that has been difficulty to fill in the industry.
However, there has been growth in the number of skilled manpower in the telecom industry over the last eight years. The NCC took certain timely initiatives to ensure that the dearth of skilled Nigerians to run the fast expanding telecom industry in the country was remedied.
A milestone was achieved on May 20, 2004 when Mr. President commissioned the ultra modern Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) in Utako, Abuja, established by the NCC as an international centre for advanced telecommunication studies.
Apart from training technical manpower, the DBI trains personnel in other specialist areas such as economic analysis, financial planning, law, arbitration, mediation, interconnection, e-commerce, business management, human resources and consultancy services.
The Nitel Training Schools in Kano and Oshodi have been transferred to the Commission by the Federal Government and have been resuscitated to become campuses of the DBI. The expanded DBI have started providing multifarious ICT training programs for over 2000 graduates annually to service both local and international markets.
Improving Quality of Service
Though tremendous progress has been witnessed in the telecommunications sector, there remain numerous challenges. One of such challenges is the poor quality of service being experienced in the network. This situation has also being blamed on lack of adequate capacity to transmit calls as well as other socio-economic factors.
However, the Commission is working assiduously to ensure that the quality of service improves significantly within the shortest possible time. The Commission is now working with operators to achieve network optimization and speed up the rate of deployment of new base Stations, switches and transmission infrastructure.
The major contributor to the current QoS challenges is network capacity constraints. The operating companies have not been able to expand their networks fast enough to meet the ever growing demand by subscribers. This was further aggravated by a few factors such vandalization of telecom infrastructure, theft among others which are adversely affecting efforts made by service providers to ensure better quality of service delivery.
Other issues such as major deterioration in the public power supply situation in the country; security challenges; delay in securing approval for siting of new base stations; among others, have also contributed in various degrees to the problem.
With the current rapid expansion programs being implemented by all the service providers, and other measures the Commission has put in place, the QoS situation has started to record improvements. The recent intervention of the Ministers of Information/Communications and the FCT in the case of Abuja will also translate to major improvement in QoS in the Federal Capital Territory.
To ensure that this situation remains the focus of the industry stakeholders always, the Commission has constituted an industry working group on Quality of Service. Also, Guidelines on Infrastructure sharing which was published few years ago should be strictly enforced to encourage infrastructure sharing at all levels.
Future outlook
As the market gets matured stakeholders in the industry which include Nigerian Communications Commission, operators, infrastructure providers among others should emphasis on building both human and infrastructure capacity required for the next frontier of growth and development in the sector. A lot of emphasis is also being placed on growing Nigeria's data capability by promoting large scale broadband internet and optic fiber rollout across the country.
The commission having concluded work on modalities of introducing Number Portability is expected to announce time for its introduction this year. To this end operators should start putting in place the necessary things for its effective launch which include capacity building in various areas of their operations.
Just last week Kenya's telecoms regulator announced that the country's four mobile networks will be required to start supporting Mobile Number Portability from this July. The regulator has been planning to offer MNP in the country for several years, but kept deferring the plans.
The plans, originally announced in 2004 were put on hold in 2007 after the regulator cited the high costs of implementing the system. They were then resurrected in late 2008 for launch between March and September 2009. It now seems likely that the launch will finally occur in the middle of this year.
Subscribers will be charged an administrative fee for each time they port their number to a new operator, although the fee is still to be worked out with the operators.
Typically in most countries where MNP has been introduced, the smaller players tend to see a short-term jump in subscriber numbers at the expense of a dominant player - in this case, Safaricom.