N
Igeria is widely recorgnised as a major market for Telecommunications Equipment and services in the African Continent. With a population of over 140 million, Nigeria remains Africa's most populous nation and is in fact home to at least one fifth of the population of Africa. Nigeria is also blessed with abundance of natural resources and is the 8th largest producer of oil in the World. The nation therefore has what it takes to attract attention of potential investors to this largely untapped telecommunications market. The Government of Nigeria is conscious of the role telecommunications can play in national development and is therefore committed to ensuring that the telecommunications facilities and services are expanded rapidly. Since the democratic governance was ushered in 1999, the attention of the world had turned to Nigeria as the Country with the highest potential for ICT investment in the continent. Nigeria has therefore continued to attract the attention of serious local and multinational investors that have come to take advantage of the investment potentials that the nation presents.
competitive, open and transparent auction process have substantially contributed to the average annual growth of over 7 million lines in the past seven years. Nigeria has introduced the Unified Access Service License, enabling the operators provide several services under a single authorization. All the companies providing GSM mobile services have been issued the USA Licenses on request. A fifth operator was also issued a Unified Access Service License by the Commission including a fifth GSM spectrum license and had rolled out services in October 2008. There are other Unified Licensees who are also providing mobile, fixed and internet services on the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) platform. Some of the major operators who were offering services on the GSM or CDMA platforms since 2001 have recently deployed 3G services. In Nigeria today, mobile phone users can have access to their mails or surf the Internet using their mobile devices. Nigeria thus remains a truly technology neutral operating environment. Nigeria is also a major market for long distance network operators and with her Central location has potential to be the ICT hub for the West African region. Nigeria equally possesses ingredients in terms of market size and population that could support local manufacturing. The Nigerian Scenario: Progress We therefore believe that this period represents a good time for Regulatory body, the Nigerian Communications Commission, investment in Nigeria's Telecommunications sector. NCC, was established in 1992, (one of the oldest in Africa), when As the economy of the nation continues to look up and with government decided to deregulate and liberalize the telecom industry. pressures from international businessmen, government, educational The NCC has over the years enjoyed full support from the highest institutions, global financial markets, and the position of Nigeria as a level of government to be able to perform its roles. Today NCC is rated major commercial center in the West African region, the demand for as one of the foremost regulatory bodies in the world. Legal and reliable and modern ICT infrastructure facilities and services is Regulatory framework has been crafted to attract and protect heavy. Nigeria is therefore a major market for Communications investors, ensure a level playing field and ensure consumer equipment and services in technology areas such as Digital protection. transmission systems (including microwave, satellite and optic fibre). Though some companies were issued licenses before 1999, full The present administration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan market liberalization only commenced in earnest with government has reiterated the need for growth of broadband and Internet all over enacting a new Telecom Policy document in September, 2000; the country as a way to promote comprehensive ICT access to all produced after full stakeholder consultations. A number of major citizens of the country. The current direction of the government is to Private Telecommunications Operators were subsequently licensed to help harness the potential of ICTs in achieving the long term vision of provide multifarious services including mobile, fixed, internet, becoming one of the major 20 economies in year 2020. broadband and multimedia services. A new law, the Nigerian Serious Investors are welcome to invest in any of these major areas Communications Act was also enacted in 2003 to boost investor or join forces with existing licensees, some of whom are also anxious confidence and provide clear rules of engagement for industry to team up with major operating companies around the world. stakeholders. The Federal Government of Nigeria is strongly committed to Private investment in the sector has grown from about $50m in providing the right policy and regulatory environment that 1999 to over $18 Billion by April 2010 with commensurate rapid encourages massive investment in the ICT sector. Government will growth in subscriber lines. continue to be open to receiving suggestions on favourable investment policies and incentives that investors require to continue The nation's teledensity to invest the necessary private stands at 55% with about 78.8 capital to build Nigeria's NOTABLE FEATURES OF THE TELECOM GROWTH million active connected lines information technology by end of April 2010. infrastructure. Adoption of open market approach which has promoted rapid deployment of ICT Nigeria, no doubt, has a services nationwide, resulting in exponential growth in the number of telephone lines. The Nigerian Scenario: crucial role to play in narrowing Connected lines only grew at an average of 10,000 lines per annum in the four Prospects the digital divide between decades between1960 and 2000. From 2008, the rate has increased to about 1.2 million Despite the progress made so per month. As of end of April 2010, Nigeria had attained 78.9 million of (fixed & mobile) Africa and the developed world. far, Nigeria remains a major Our vision is to position Nigeria active-subscriber base. market for ICT services. With a among the information-rich Total teledensity which was less than 0.4% (0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants) in 2000 has teledensity of just 55% for a economies of the world. We are soared to 55% by end of July 2009 (relative to the current population figure of 140 million). population of 140 million, the aware that the world is looking All the States of the Federation are covered by both services. At least two operators are need to continue the expansion up to Nigeria to take advantage present in all the 36 States and the Federal Capital. Landmass coverage is estimated at of the nation's ICT of its vast human and material around 75% Substantial population coverage Significant growth in Sector contribution infrastructure represents resources and become the to growth of GDP tremendous opportunity to catalyst for the economic The emergence of digital mobile services has led to improvements in efficiency and productivity, prospective operators for voice, development of the Continent. reduction in transaction costs, increased service innovation and better quality of life. More than i n t e r n e t a n d b ro a d b a n d We intend to achieve this by 30,500 persons have been directly employed by the telecom operators and millions of Nigerians services. Four GSM mobile continuing to adopt open and providers. are benefitting from indirect employment generated by the service operators which were licensed pro-competitive regulatory There is a nationwide network of dealers, vendors, and retailers of mobile phone accessories in 2001 and 2002 by way of a policies and creating attractive of ubiquitous “Umbrella-Call centres� handling calls and providing access to services. investment climate.
ICT Finishing School
D
IGITAL BRIDGE INSTITUTE, DBI, is an initiative of the Nigerian Communications Commission, as part of a larger effort to proactively build human capacity and sustain and drive the growth trends of the Nigerian telecom marketplace. The successful deregulation of the Nigerian telecommunications industry required enough qualified technical and managerial workforce in the country to support growth rapidity. DBI was designed as an International Centre for Telecommunications and Information Technology Studies, with headquarters in Utako District, Abuja, Nigeria. Two other campuses of the institution are being established in Lagos, the commercial capital of the country, and Kano, a big commercial city in the northern part of the country. The mission of DBI is to contribute to the creation of knowledgebased information society in Africa, through human resource capacity building in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector, by providing cutting-edge academic and professional courses delivered from an ultra-modern learning facility by experienced world-class lecturers and instructors. The mandate of DBI in creating a robust base of highly trained workforce that would satisfy the staffing and human resource needs of the exploding telecommunications and IT marketplace in Africa, include offering of comprehensive portfolio of hands-on engineering and technical training programs for professionals and practitioners in the telecommunications and IT industry. The institute is also mandated to focus on educating and training manpower in all spheres of telecommunications and Information technology at postgraduate and diploma levels.
T
he Nigerian Communications Commission is dedicated to the ideals of providing of telecom services to the underserved and un-served segments of the Nigerian society. It is for this reason that the Commission was at the vanguard of the enactment of the law to establish the Universal Service Provision Fund, USPF. The Act mandates the Commission to design, consider and determine a system which shall promote the widespread availability and usage of network services and applications services throughout Nigeria. This is to be achieved by encouraging the installation of network facilities and the provision of network services and application services to institutions, and in unserved, underserved areas, or for underserved groups within the community. The idea behind USPF is to bridge the information gap between the information-rich and the information-poor, and encourage user friendly and affordable access to ICTs in Nigeria. USPF projects are executed through public-private partnership framework. The Fund seeks to promote the following objectives in rural and underserved areas of Nigeria: * Contribute to national economic and social development through enhancing the universal accessibility and availability of telecommunications and ICT infrastructures and services; * Facilitate the provision of access to ICT services within a reasonable distance to all persons in Nigeria; * Facilitate provision of infrastructural development to rural and underserved areas in a non-discriminatory manner; * Promote technological innovation in ICT services delivery; * Promote competition in ICT services delivery; * Ensure effective utilization of funds to leverage investments in rural communications; * Support the establishment efficient, self-sustaining, market-oriented businesses, which will continue to expand access to ICTs on their own initiative, requiring the minimum amounts of short- and long-term fund support possible;
The WIN Initiative
Voice for users In Nigeria, a unique platform exists for users of telecommunications services to ventilate their feelings about services provided by any of the service providers in the network. This platform is the Telecom Consumer Parliament, a monthly interactive session where consumers of telecom services meet with the operators in the presence of the regulator with a view to expressing their views or complaints about services rendered by the operators. Telecom Consumer Parliament brings stakeholders in the industry (i.e the Telecom Regulator, Operators and
Consumers) to openly discuss problems affecting the Consumers of Telecommunication services and is held monthly across the six geopolitical zones. This novel approach in dealing with consumer issues has been acknowledged by the ITU as an innovative and effective mechanism for resolving the complaints of consumers. The Commission has been very active in its approach to protect and promote consumer interest and has devoted considerable amount of resources to give voice to the consumer in the Nigerian telecom market.
The pace of Nigeria's telecom growth demands high capacity transmission infrastructure to provide the necessary support base for further expansion in the sector. The idea behind Wire Nigeria, WIN, project is to provide a national backbone infrastructure which will allow multiple operators to hook on at different point to deliver quality broadband
transmission services across the length and breadth of Nigeria. The Commission is to provide support to private operators who would deploy expansive fibre optic backbone infrastructure. It will also encourage other operators and investors to deploy the needed infrastructure to complement existing capacities in the industry.
Accelerated Broadband Project State Accelerated Broadband Initiative, SABI, is a programme of the NCC, designed to encourage the private sector to build and run broadband infrastructures with government incentives. This project will cover all the 36 state capitals across Nigeria and some urban and semi urban centres in the country.
The rationale behind SABI project is to provide wireless broadband services in Nigerian cities so as to stimulate demand for Internet services and increase usage. SABI is expected to stimulate various eactivities and other e-driven applications at the remotest parts of the country.