By Prince Osuagwu

In a few weeks time, the Nigerian ICT landscape would roar again just like it happened in August 2001. This time around, it would definitely not be the licensing of new GSM operators but the gradual flag off of mobile money in Nigeria.

This is following the licensing of a few mobile money operators in the country recently by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. However, the argument is who actually regulates the operators?

To discern this, a few ICT media professionals cornered the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC recently in Abuja and he gave a clearer picture of what is to happen, among other topical issues. Excerpts:

There is a demand on government and all stakeholders to make broadband a digital right of the citizens and this demands the cooperation of all. Can the commission alone ensure this. What agenda does the NCC have for broadband penetration and what are the hindrances to achieving it.

Jumah

In different fora I have spoken extensively about our vision for broadband — broadband for development. NCC is government. We are a government body.

We have certain mandates including access to telecommunication services. It is part of our mandate, under our act. While we are not particularly in charge of policy which resides in the ministries of government.

We always contribute towards policy and I can assure you there is a policy statement, policy procedure that is still prepared for now, for communication and we are fully involved in that and the issue of broadband is also being addressed there.

But for NCC, we realise that it requires a specialized body like the NCC to show the way and in our own small but special way, we are going to start to implement our broadband vision for national development.

We have traveled round the world to see how it is done else where, as a matter of fact I’m just coming from Singapore which I visited with some of my directors. Singapore presents a unique case for Nigeria, because it is also the regulators that implemented this broadband vision in Singapore.

So we have seen how it is implemented in Singapore and we will adapt to what we want to do here. When the government policy becomes full blown, which we are contributing to, then there is an example of how to do it.

Which has been well researched, so that is why we have decided to start our own initiative and when the government fully approves it’s policy then they can contribute substantial funding much more than we are contributing now.

But basically as you know, our programme is to enable an environment to enhance broadband deployment. In a non profit way, in a non competitive way. In a non propriety way for NCC we are not going to hold anything.

We are only going to enhance the environment, licence provision providers, operators and contribute to their funding in a way that we don’t expect to physically gain any monetary benefit from it but contribute to the prizing to some of the programme and objectives that these companies have.

Two things are happening almost at the same time right now; one is mobile money. The CBN has given some operators license. In the scheme of things who regulates mobile money operation? The second one is the digitisation of frequency. What will happen to the frequencies that broadcasters would leave behind in going digital by 2012?

There is really no confusion about the two issues. Mobile money, actually has its core business residual in the banks and the licence for mobile money is being issued by CBN today.

It may also interest you to know that CBN is in consultation with the NCC because the operation requires the consent of operators. However, the NCC is also preparing a regulation and a category of licence for this. There has been issues about the CBN licensing of mobile money

. CBN as you know it is a statutory body of it’s own that we don’t control. And so it chooses who it gives licence and who it doesn’t give license. The process really, is like the operators get a licence from CBN and then come to NCC with licence to interconnect with operators.

You can not put the cart before the horse; the CBN has to give licenses first. So the people that have been given licenses by the CBN can come to us for a licence for interconnection with the operators.

About digitisation, the frequency by law is also residual with the Information and Communications ministry. We are only distributors of frequencies.

So the ministry is responsible for taking up those frequencies in the first instance and allocating them to the users or the distributors of frequencies like us.

We will make a case for the frequencies that we require and of course it is the Frequency Management Council that represents most of the stakeholders in the frequency states.

At times there are arguments, but we have been able to get the free frequencies that we need from them. The ones that are not free we are still in dialogue negotiating with the holders for a returning of the frequencies.

The CDMA operators are going down by the day. There has been this call for a bail out to enable them grow their networks as quickly as possible to be able to compete with the GSM operators. Do you share in that call?

You must not forget that I used to work for one of them and I have personal experiences here. All these things are subjective. I have my own view, you have your own view.

Judging by their capitalization, judging by their amount of frequency that they have, they were supposed to be playing at different and specialized dimensions.

But incidentally, you know this universal access licence came and they wanted to compete with the bigger boys and in doing that, some of them that have very little capital went and borrowed and when you borrow at 25% interest rate in Nigeria, it will take out all your profit.

So this may be one of the causes of their problem. Their strategy was wrong. It cannot be attributed to mismanagement or fraud or anything. It’s just their vision, it was wrong.

In that case, I don’t think they are entitled to a bail out; but then it is not left for me to make that decision. I do not think that CDMA as a technology is faulty. It was actualised in the US and Verizon which is the biggest operator in the US is a CDMA operator.

The problem is that when you want to compete you must know your strength or there is the possibility of shooting one self on the foot. Having said that, we are still open to a convincing case, which if NCC here as a body is convinced we will take it to our policy maker which is the Minister of Information and Communications.

If the minister is convinced, he can take it to the Federal Executive Council. If they discuss it and they agree, it becomes government policy and then government can allocate money to it. So it is not something that NCC will wake up and say let us bail out this and this people. It has to be a policy by the government.

What happens to the recurring issue of Quality of service?

There has been issue of quality of service and everyday one other expert comes and talks as if they have the magic in their fingers. But as a commission, we have limited response opportunities.

But the issue of quality of service has been with the market for quite some time; it’s not a new thing. I know there was a time the operators were stopped from selling SIM Cards among other measures.

But the quality of service issue is congestion — when facilities are not enough to cope with the demand of subscribers. In a price war among the operators, prices came down. We didn’t force any operator to lower his price.

I’ve always said that competitive force will drive down prizes and that is what is happening now. Incidentally, more people are making calls. The demand and the load on the network has increased. So the issue of quality of service is exacerbated.