Telecom
Subscribers Groan as Operators Fight over Interconnect issues
Subscribers of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) services are lamenting over their inability to make seamless call over different network as a result of interconnectivity issues.
Mr. Kayode Adeyemi, one of the subscribers that spoke to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek expressed his frustration, saying: “I’m a subscriber of three of the GSM operators, each time I try to make across the network calls; it becomes difficulty now compared to what it used to be. What I hear is ‘the number you are calling is not available at the moment’ but if I call with the same network line it will go through. This situation is becoming worrisome; it seems we are going back to the 2011 era when big operators used interconnection as a weapon to frustrate small operators”.
Ike Nnamani, chief executive officer, Medallion, said that interconnectivity has remained a big issue in the country’s telecommunications industry because of none compliance of operators to Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) directive on the percentage of traffic that should pass through the clearing houses.
“NCC stipulated that operators should channel 10 percent of their traffic through clearing houses, but today they are doing less than five percent which is below 50 percent of the stipulated figure. This is one of the reasons for the situation subscribers are facing in making across the network calls.
“More so, absence of ‘Settlement scheme’ in the industry is also responsible which is being worked on by the NCC. This is the fallout of continuous use of peer to peer traffic model; Ghana borrowed the idea of clearing house from Nigeria.
Today, Ghanaian parliament has passed a law making it illegal for any operator operating in their country to pass traffic directly between operators without going through a clearing house. These operators frustrating clearing house operation in Nigeria are also operating in Ghana and have complied with the law, but same cannot be said in Nigeria,” he added.
Engr. Olusola Teniola, president, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said that the ideal setup for any voice network is to have multiple alternative interconnect points that are able to carry sufficient traffic during peak hour periods. It appears that some direct peering trunks at interconnection are either heavily congested due to the amount of voice and data traffic utilizing the network or that the least busy network is able to find free available interconnect links to those networks that are facing congestion along their peer-to-peer connections.
“The physical links depict the infrastructure that has been invested in by each operator and depending on the reach and size of their customer base, traffic engineering needs to be optimally provisioned and configured to allow for sudden increases in sharp demand in certain regions.
“The nature of traffic routing around the country also has a bearing on the quality experienced by a consumer at different times. If a truly redundant backbone network had been in place for the MNOs to use then the issue of interconnection problems would not exist within the limits of call capacity,” he said.
Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) is planning to encourage geo-political regions that grants zero charges for ‘Right of Way’ approvals as well not implementing arbitrary charges on telecommunications base stations in their regions with zero tariff.
Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON disclosed this to Nigeria CommunincationsWeek against the backdrop of incessant closure of base stations in some states.
He said that operators believe that the way out of this arbitrary charges and high cost of RoW approvals is regional tariffs.
“Operators are advocating for a regional tariff which means that geographical regions of Nigeria where cost of doing business for telecommunications operators is extremely high will attract high tariff compared to regions where there is low operating cost.
“Our advocacy of regional tariff is not based on a particular state but on regions. As at today there are regions where we have zero cost of “Right of Way” and low cost of doing business. Tariffs should reflect on operating environment. This means that national rate plan should consider high and low cost of doing business.
“If this is implemented, in a long run we could witness some regions having zero tariff because operational cost in such regions are friendly to operators,” he said.
It would be recalled that Kogi State recently shut down some operators’ base stations on account of local levies which raises the call for discriminatory tariff among geographical locations.
AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software driving digital transformation and sustainability in industries, today announces the appointment of Sébastien Ory, 48, as EMEA VP in charge of the partner and distributor network. VP of AVEVA Southern Europe since 2022 and President of AVEVA France since 2023, Sébastien now replaces Karine Calvet while remaining President of AVEVA France.
Sébastien Ory as EMEA VP Partners & Channels, AVEVA
In this new role, he will oversee the relationships with the various stakeholders involved in the distribution of AVEVA software and will have direct responsibility for more than forty employees spread across the EMEA region. Sébastien Ory will report directly to Jesus Hernandez, the new SVP of the EMEA region, who replaces Evgeny Fedotov, now CCO of RIB.
More than 18-year career in the industry
A graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris and the Institut National de l’Aéronautique (ISAE-SupAero) in Toulouse, Sebastien Ory is an active advocate for driving sustainable progress in the industrial sector.
He began his career at France Telecom as a sales manager where he stayed for 4 years before giving a more industrial dimension to his career.
With fifteen years of experience in the industrial automation industry, Sebastien Ory has developed a strategic understanding of this field. After 10 years in Schneider Electric’s industrial automation business, he led the global industrial software business development team for Schneider Electric Software from 2015 to 2018, with a particular focus on the water, power generation, mining and food industries. During these 3 years, the introduction of new software solutions will allow Schneider Electric Software to initiate and develop significant growth areas.
7 years at AVEVA
In 2018, Sébastien joined AVEVA as Vice President of the Southeast Asia region, leading a team of 200 talents in charge of delivering cloud-based industrial analytics and AI software. In addition to the growing developing the teams he leads from the Singapore headquarters, part of his energy is devoted to establishing direct engagement with leaders of major groups in the region such as Petronas, Pertamina, PTT, Wilmar and Olam, to stimulate their digital transformation initiatives.
In 2022, he took over the leadership of AVEVA’s activities in Southern Europe, a major industrial market for the company, whose customers, world leaders in the fields of Energy, Chemicals, Agri-food, Pharmaceuticals and Water, are looking for AVEVA’s expertise to accelerate and drive their digital transformation and sustainability strategies, as well as their energy transition projects. The changes he brings to the organization of the sales team are bearing fruit and allow AVEVA to acquire new customers while consolidating key accounts. As Sebastien transitions to the role of VP EMEA Partners & Channels, Dominique Bazin becomes the new Vice President of AVEVA Southern Europe.
EMEA VP Partners & Channels: a highly strategic position within AVEVA
Sébastien now holds the position of Vice President in charge of the Partners and Channels for AVEVA in Europe, Middle East and Africa, a major market for the company. His main mission is to design and implement a strategy for the growth of indirect sales, through a network of partners and strong alliances with Digital Services Companies (DSCs), AI platform providers and independent software vendors (ISVs) whose solutions are compatible with the CONNECT platform.
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has hit back at Meta Platforms Inc, warning the tech giant that its threat to exit Nigeria will not erase its legal responsibilities or liabilities under the Nigerian law.
Meta said earlier today, May 3, that it “may be forced to effectively shut down the Facebook and Instagram services in Nigeria in order to mitigate the risk of enforcement measures.”
Meta’s warning came after it lost a legal bid last week to overturn a ₦220 million fine imposed by the FCCPC for violations of data protection and consumer rights laws.
Reacting to Meta’s threat, FCCPC, in a statement on Saturday, May 3, described Meta’s statement as “a calculated” move aimed at “inducing negative public reaction and potentially pressuring the FCCPC to reconsider its decision.”
FCCPC said that Meta threatening to leave Nigeria does not absolve the company of liabilities for the outcome of a judicial process.
“These infringements included denying Nigerians the right to control their personal data, transferring and sharing Nigerian user data without authorisation, discriminating against Nigerian users compared to users in other jurisdictions and abusing their dominant market position by forcing unfair privacy policies,” FCCPC wrote on X.
“Interestingly, Meta had been fined for similar breaches in Texas ($1.5b) and only recently was asked to pay $1.3 Billion for violating E.U. Data Privacy Rules.
Elsewhere in India, South Korea, France and Australia, Meta had faced varying penalties for similar breaches. But Meta never resorted to the blackmail of threatening to exit those countries. They obeyed.”
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