No plans to license more telecoms operators in Nigeria, NCC

Mr Ernest Ndukwe, Executive Vice-Chairman, Nigerian Commu-nications Commission (NCC), says there are no plans to licence more telecommuni-cations operators in the country.

The Federal Govern

Ndukwe

ment issued five Digital Mobile Licenses to operators in 2001 and 13 Unified Access Service Licences in 2006 respectively.Ndukwe said on Monday that the Commission’s priority was “to encourage those who already have licenses to grow and develop”.

He declared: “Our priority today is not necessarily to keep licensing more and more operators, because there are many operators in the market. However, if there are new technologies and market niches where new operators want to fill, we will be quite happy to bring them on board.

“Nigeria is the most liberalised telecoms market in Africa today, and we have more operators than others. With the level of competition in our environment, what we should be doing is to ensure that services being delivered are of top quality, prices go down and we create the right environment for companies to thrive.

“The success of the operating companies is also critical to the future of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria, because if they fail, consumers will suffer and we don’t want that to happen.”

He said Nigeria would have recorded more strides in ICT development, except for the problem of low power supply.
He expressed optimism that the current efforts by government in building more power plants across the country would go a long way in positioning the country as a major hub for ICT development on the continent.

“I personally believe that the Nigerian telecom industry will continue to grow, improve and advance, while the country will be a leading light in ICT, ten years from now, for the whole of Africa and the developed world.