Telecommunications towers in the country consume about 1.4 million litres of diesel to power base transceiver stations (BTS) that make it possible for Nigerians to use GSM to make and receive calls in a day.
Telecom towers house base stations that Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and 4G internet service providers use to deliver services to their customers.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that a co-located tower which houses 3 to 5 base stations use 27KVA generator to supply power while a tower that houses a single base station uses 15KVA generator.
More so, a 27KVA generator consumes 3 litres of diesel per hour depending on the age of such generator.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that presently, towers run on generator in an average of 20 hours a day.
This means that 20,000 of co-located towers in the country that uses 27KVA generator consumes some 1.2million litres of diesel a day, while towers that house single base station which are 5,000 consume 200,000 litres of diesel a day bringing the total consumption of generators deployed in towers around the country to 1.4m litres per day.
It was learnt that this quantity of diesel consume by generators at different towers cost tower operators about N196million at diesel pump price of N140 per litre.
Lanre Ajayi, president, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), identified service cost in the management of power supply as responsible for high cost of managing towers in the country.
According to him, ‘the high cost of tower management is occasioned by service cost provided at the towers such as power and security.
“Most towers are powered by generators and the cost of gas is high, they provide security at the towers. These are outside the control of co-location operators,” he said.
Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said: “In Nigeria, power is a challenge for tower operators, as cost of diesel is high; today you buy N140 per litre tomorrow you buy it for N150. These costs are not insignificant and affect the business”
He added that the present system of handing over towers to tower operators will create more jobs as it encourages springing up of supportive players in the industry.
“This is also fallout of our internal regulatory mechanism to ensure growth in the industry. More so, tower sale could be as a result of administrative reasons, cost reduction or shareholders decision,” he said.