The issue of infrastructure sharing in Nigerian telecommunications industry is extremely important since the resources used to provide the services are limited.

Whether in passive or active model, infrastructure sharing is a key element in promoting healthy competition among market players, with a reasonable investment value and a fair price to be charged to the consumer.

These were the thoughts of panellists at the Mobile and Disruptive Technology Forum (#MoDiTECH2019) organised by TechEconomy.ng in Lagos, recently.

Moderated by Mr. Toba Obaniyi, the Vice President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), the panelists discussed issues around “Infrastructure as a Limitation to Unleashing Digital Services in Nigeria”.

Dr. Kris Ranganath, Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Medallion Communications, speaking during the panel session, reiterated that leveraging the capacity of colocation companies such as Medallion Communications Limited could be the way out for players to reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX).

Dr. Ranganath said that despite a record of over $70 billion local and foreign direct investments (FDIs) into the country’s telecoms sector, lack of a robust infrastructure remains one of the challenges that have bedevilled the industry.

He said that as the major employer of labour and an enabler of economic development, the industry deserves protection by the government to continue to add value to the GDP.

He said that Medallion Communications Limited, one of West African one-stop interconnect and hosting companies readily comes into the picture as an enabler of colocation model for the country

The CTO said that the Company has preached and has painstakingly been building infrastructure backbone supporting Nigeria’s ICT and telecommunications industry in the area of carrier neutral infrastructure sharing and connectivity over the years and will continue to add value to the ecosystem.

He said, although they have not totally addressed the challenges, but their efforts have given rise to Nigerians appreciating the value of shared infrastructure and data center service delivery.

“The Medallion collocation center, located in Lagos, is today, one of the most connected facilities in Nigeria. Over 80 service providers, including all global system for mobile communications (GSM) operators, code division multiple access (CDMA) operators, fixed wireless and fixed line operators in Nigeria are connected to the Medallion’s collocation center.

“The resilience telecom infrastructure Medallion has built over the years is currently accommodating the hosting of contents from both local and international service providers in Nigeria. Therefore, we are localising a huge percentage of content and data, which were hitherto hosted abroad,” the Medallion Communications CTO added.

He said that while the Company drives colocation, among other services, the client lists also include all long distance, international fiber network operators and metro fiber transmission providers in Nigeria.

More so, Chidi Okpala, Marketing Manager, Galaxy Backbone Limited, said that infrastructure sharing is a way of reducing the costs of investing in networks, increasing the value of the business, optimizing the allocation and use of infrastructures when duplication is impossible, and guaranteeing the compliance with regulatory obligations.

He added that the resultant impact is in an improvement of the conditions of the service provided to the users, especially in offering quality service.

Okpala said that more importantly, infrastructure sharing is always advisable to foster competition in the sector, thus favouring the final consumer, either with an improvement in the quality of the service, or with a possible reduction in the prices charged by the sector.

According to him, Galaxy Backbone has continued to provide connectivity services to Government MDAs across the length and breadth of Nigeria on its 1GOV.ng platform.

“This has given federal government the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of economies of scale and encourage local partnerships”.

Galaxy Backbone (GBB) is the Digital and Shared Services Infrastructure provider of the federal government.

For close to two decades, GBB has continued to strive towards living its mission being, to drive national development through the provision of pervasive ICT Infrastructure and services to public institutions, underserved communities and other stakeholders.

This mission propels the day to day running of the organisation and how it interacts with institutions, local communities and other stakeholders.

Similarly, the persistent infrastructure deficit in the Nigerian telecoms sector are due to obvious multifaceted factors like multiple taxation, vandalism, inconsistent policies, among other factors.

In his contribution, the president, Association of Licensed Mobile Payment Operators (ALMPO), Mr. Chinedu Onuoha, said that in addition to improved infrastructure deployment, introducing innovative solutions that have the potential to reduce costs in digital payments is crucial too.

He said that FinTechs must continue to strive to develop and unleash real-time settlement solutions for financial institutions and capable of impacting of rural dwellers.

He said that standardization through policies cannot be overemphazised as the costs, risks and delays inherent in today’s infrastructure often limit electronic payment products, particularly to large-value transactions.

He referred to the recent issues generated by the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) charges by banks and telecos could have been addressed through stakeholders’ engagements.

He reminded the participants that infrastructure deficit is chief among the reasons financial institutions find it difficult to even offer low-value payment products.

For instance, banks and licensed mobile money operators lack capacity to manager issues arising from network downtime among other issues.

Mr. Onuoha said that for these reasons and more, ALMPO was formed “to create a voice for the industry in order to create, influence and shape policies, Government legislations and to build standards within the frameworks that will provide stability and growth to the mobile money environment and also to contribute to the economy of the Mobile payment initiative in Nigeria”.