By Titi Omo-Ettu
Industry restructuring, not merger, expected The industry caught a whiff of the Minister of Information and Communications pledging to recommend the merger of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, and the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, before the end of the year as if it was a new subject.

As the year ended not much was heard of the pledge. The reasons given for a merger are at best specious as industry players have consistently argued that what is required in the spirit of driving the industry and economy forward is restructuring via the wholesale review of regulatory and administrative regime in a true, orderly ICT industry.
SIM Card registration scheme

Eight years after the first use of subscriber identification module, SIM system of locating users within networks, Nigerian authorities eventually introduced a scheme to curtail the menace of mobile phone handset theft in Nigeria, authorized and commissioned a registry and anti-phone theft system for Mobile phones in the country.

The registry and the service are designed that a mobile phone which is reported stolen will be rendered useless as it cannot be connected to any telephone network in the country. The service which will be at no cost but will require subscribers register their 15 digit International Mobile Equipment identity (IMEI) numbers with the Central Equipment Identity Registry (CEIR) thus addressing the need to identify phone users not only within the switch system but also within the global networking to curtail fraud and improve planning data. NCC in the closing days of the year put commencement date to March 1, 2010.

Naturally, operators are bound to cry murder since necessary investment to realise the change may not be necessarily recoverable. It will only just be a normal reaction to expect.

Broadband in Nigeria expected
Tempo of the clamour for Nigeria to make strategic investment in Broadband infrastructure is approaching fever pitch. Professional associations, NGOs, those in academia and informed industry players are united in their accepting that although there is reason to celebrate the rapid increase in subscriber numbers, it has become obvious the aspect of data penetration through broadband that is supposed to boost Internet penetration is lagging behind owing to the unavailability of full broadband services, coupled with high cost of bandwidth. A government that mouths the ’20-20-20′ slogan without prioritising broadband stimulation presents as queer at best.

Emerging Businesses
A new Global Mobile Personal Service by Satellite provider, Globaltouch West Africa rolled out service from its earth station based in Kaduna.

And two Nigerian firms Globacom and Omatek forayed into other markets as they opened shops in Ghana and Benin Republic.

Nigeria’’s DAAR Communications Plc, operators of DAARSat and AIT Television turned on the switch of access to world class digital broadcasting with a further acquisition of a number of high-resolution based outside broadcast facilities which it received into its stock.

Space Research and Development:
Nigeria’s Satellite launch is business, Yes; technological development?, No!
NARSDA which celebrated its 10th anniversary during the year started it with a new administration which ended the tenure of the biology Professor who took charge of the agency in its formative years. It took the country the loss of a launched commercial satellite in space to reappraise things. Quite remarkable for an agency which in all ten years of its existence and modus operandi has no basis – no Act of law nor in the appropriation of its finances by the nation’’s legislature. Such malady of democracy! The legacy of a somebody.

The agency has promised that the lost satellite would be returned to space in 2010. Say ‘‘amen’’, somebody.