By Prince Osuagwu

I n the wake of continued cries by the telecommunications operators for government to provide more support than it already doing if more growth and stability would be achieved in the sector, Hi-Tech cornered the Corporate Services Executive of MTN Nigeria after a recent event in Lagos. In this interview, Goodluck provided more insights on the kind of support the operators need and a lot more other issues. Excerpts:

Can you give a brief appraisal of the industry in the year 2011 and the way forward for 2012?
2011 was a very challenging year for the industry from several perspectives. We saw the industry for instance experience the biggest price drop we have ever seen. In 2011, retail tariff went down for as much as between 40 and 50 percent across all networks, and the challenge for that is a corresponding increase in the minutes of use, with the attendant capacity issues. This is because demand is way ahead of supply.

The flip side of that also is that we are not seeing the sort of elasticity that we would like to see in terms of more use and greater revenue for operators. What is important is that operators have to put more capacity on the ground. The global trend of competition to drive down tariffs will continue in 2012. Operators will definitely have to build a lot more infrastructure, a lot more network and also ensure that they invest in non-voice revenue stream.

For MTN, will this take care of quality of service which has also been a big issue in the industry?
The quality of service issue is something that has been receiving great attention of MTN Nigeria. It is also something that, like I always say, keeps us awake. These days we are focusing more on the quality of the subscriber experience because there is no point for your network counters and parameters to be looking good and your subscribers are not experiencing that level of quality. So for us, we are focusing on addressing the things that are affecting the customer’s experience. We are also working with our regulators and they have been very bullish in terms of stipulating quality of service measurement and all operators are putting in their best to achieve and exceed expectations.

AKINWALE GOODLUCK

Broadband penetration is still very low and subscribers are complaining.  MTN has WACS, as an addition to existing international submarine cables. When will subscribers begin to feel the impact of this capacity landing on our shores?
To provide the quality of broadband that we would like, that will take Nigeria into the future and would promote and support the sort of socio-economic activities we are seeing in advanced countries, in my opinion, there are four areas we need to address as a matter of urgency.

One is that we must put fibre into the ground as operators and if we do not put fibre into the ground, we cannot provide the sort of robust internet broadband capacity that people want in Nigeria. We need government to support the issues around the acquisition of right-of-way. We need all the different tiers of government to make it more transparent, to avoid rent seekers and to give people who are going to put capacity into the ground the rights of way where they want it and in good time. It is also important that government begins to see broadband as a national imperative and in this regard, everything that government is doing should promote or support its roll-out.

For instance, all the roads that are being constructed now, the government should ensure that they are built with service ducts. These service ducts will be leased by the government to the operators. It also means that the roads that the government has built with service ducts will not be dug by telecom operators. They will simply use the ducts. There is need for government to also begin to look, in the medium to long term, at encouraging development and use of data both in terms of e-Government, in terms of how we socialize, how we work, how records are kept etc. So everybody should be looking to automate their processes and all this will sit on the data network.

There is this general belief that limited number of base stations is also part of the problem of quality of service that we are currently experiencing. Do you agree with this belief? Again, how many base stations does MTN have in this country?

The reality is that for an effective mobile network, as demand grows, you will definitely need more and more base stations. There is nothing anybody can do about it. I know that operators and MTN particularly, have done maximum optimization of existing resources but there is no other option but to continue to build. In the absence of this, we will suffer congestion. We need authorities in government to remove barriers to rolling out base stations. We have base stations planned for all over the country that we are unable to deploy because of bureaucratic bottlenecks and restrictions hampering the rollout of networks. Today, we have over 7,000 base stations built across Nigeria.

NCC is gearing up to ask operators to begin services on mobile number portability. How ready is MTN for this?

In terms of readiness, Mobile Number Portability is something that has been on the cards for a while. We can only dance as fast as the drum-beat of the regulator. I know that the regulator is on top of the issue of Mobile Number Portability. The regulator has appointed the people to run the MNP platform in Nigeria and at the moment they are putting together the rules and regulations that would govern the administration of Mobile Number Portability.

Communication Technology Minister, Omobola Johnson

From an MTN perspective, number portability is something that we are looking forward to. We are prepared and we have got a multi-dimensional team. We are also relying on the experience we have picked up with MNP in our other markets. So it is not going to come as a surprise. We are already putting things in place to ensure that when MNP kicks off, we are more than ready.

MTN sets aside up to 1% of its profit after tax  to fund MTN Foundation initiatives, do you have plans to expand your CSR activities to other areas aside from the three areas you currently dwell on?

We are going to continue our work along the three pivotal areas of health, education and economic empowerment. In terms of reach, the Foundation has a mandate to ensure that there is equity in the spread of its projects. The management of the Foundation is actually judged by the spread of their projects. So we don’t concentrate projects in one state of the federation or one region of the federation. The mandate is to spread it equally among the six geo-political zones. We can’t be everywhere on the same day but as time goes on, we will get everywhere.

Some argue that NCC has not been hard on telecom operators and that this gives way to laxity. How would you rate regulation in the industry in terms of KPIs?

A major reason for the success of our industry has been the regulatory environment. The NCC has gone about regulating this industry, I will say, according to best in class practices, world class standards. I think the way the NCC has gone about regulating this market is now the subject of studies all over sub-Saharan Africa and in other emerging economies. I know that a lot of people have come to the NCC to ask for resources in helping them set up their regulatory environment and hopefully replicate the sort of achievement we have made in Nigeria.

That aside, as an operator, we cannot always agree with the NCC and the NCC will not always agree with us. If operators and the NCC agree on everything, then it means there is something fundamentally wrong. We have had significant differences with the NCC. In some of those matters, we have ended up in court. Some we are still in court, because where we are not sure, we are not shy to seek judicial interpretation. The industry acknowledges that the NCC is under pressure from different stakeholders, from subscribers, the legislature, the government, the media and also from operators.

The NCC is not out to kill operators and at the same time, must not pamper operators. The regulator must work always in the best interest of the industry. We saw recently, the NCC came out with new network KPIs and in our environment, meeting those KPIs in an environment where there is significant lack of infrastructure, there are power issues, there is poor lead time to carry out repairs on the network, and so on. So the quality of service indicators are very steep and we will continue to engage with the NCC.

Telecoms achievement in the last ten years have been fantastic. So let us make a projection, especially now that we are moving towards data, what will the next milestone be in the next three to five years?

If a few things are put in place, if we are able to sort out the issue around spectrum, the NCC and the federal government are able to license spectrum for 4G, that is, Long Term Evolution, and we are able to sort out the issues around rights of way and putting fibre into the ground, more metropolitan fibre, more national fibre, we are in for great things in Nigeria. I will say that this is going to change the way we do everything. It is going to make life a lot easier.

It is going to enable us to run our businesses better. It is going to enable more and more entrepreneurs in our society. It will change the way we focus on education and our education system now that is certificate-led, will now become an education system that is more ability-led and we will see young men and women become wealthy people as a result of the opportunities that are available, because of broadband.