Telcos Berates Nesrea for Shutting Down BTS

The manner with which some telecommunications operators’ base stations were shut down by the National Environmental Standard and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Nesrea) last week has been described as a display of high handedness and contravention of laws guiding such action, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.
Base stations enable people to send and receive calls and texts. They are powered by generators in Nigeria due to the unreliable state of electricity supply.
Mr. Wale Goodluck, Corporate Services executive, MTN Nigeria, told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek that the company actually got a letter from the environmental agency on some issues with their base stations and said that MTN has started addressing them before they were clamped down.
 “In some of the sites we have addressed the issue and they went ahead to shut them,” he said.
He added that MTN was not notified before the base stations were shut down and that there was no warrant before they carried out the action.
Goodluck added that such action is a breach of established rules guiding the shut down of infrastructure licensed by the government.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that the action of Nesrea is generating concerns in the telecommunications industry prompting Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (Alton) to schedule an emergency meeting early this week.
Some of the operators, it was gathered, may opt for legal action to determine whether Nesrea has the jurisdiction to regulate telecommunications service delivery in the country or the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
It would be recalled that Nesrea had last week shut down base stations belonging to MTN Nigeria, Zain, Glo and Visafone in some cities claiming they did not comply with local regulations covering base stations in residential areas.
According to the environmental impact assessment Act, base stations are only allowed to be located 10 metres away from the fence of any resident or 12 meters away from the building.
Timothy Okeowo, director of administration and finance of Nesrea, complained about the impact of oil-spillage from the base stations on the environment and regretted that previous complaints by Nesrea has not attracted any remarkable response from the communication firms.
“Most of the telecommunication companies are defaulters of the environmental laws which we are meant to protect,” he said.