By Prince Osuagwu

Despite all the growth potentials of the Nigerian telecommunications sector, a recent report has declared that Nigeria was lagging behind than many other African countries in a number of market indicators.

The research however said that to get the wheel of success rolling, the country must find a correct mix of regulatory initiatives and necessary interventions needed to encourage greater competition among market players.

Nigeria’s telecommunications market is fully liberalised, highly competitive, and evolving with time. Since 1992, a wide range of regulatory initiatives has been undertaken to open up the market to private operators to provide products and services across the entire spectrum of ICT market segments. These initiatives, particularly in relation to market entry, have resulted in an impressive 53% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in overall fixed and mobile subscriptions since 2001. Quarterly telecommunications sectoral growth is up to 35%, and the sector’s annual contribution to GDP was estimated at 6.73% in 2012.

But the report however, said, “in spite of the widely publicised successes, sector performance review indicated that Nigeria, was lagging behind many other African countries with respect to a number of market indicators.

“By using nationally representative household survey samples, its 2012 ICT Access and Usage Surveys in 12 African countries showed that Nigeria ranked 5th with respect to mobile penetration and 5th in terms of industry perception of the effectiveness of domestic telecommunications regulation.

“In terms of RIA’s broader Pricing Transparency Index, Prepaid Mobile for 2012, Nigeria ranks 17th out of 46 countries in terms of the affordability of the cheapest prepaid mobile product from a dominant operator, and 13th out of 46 for affordability of the cheapest mobile prepaid product from any operator”.

The 2012 RIA Nigeria ICT Access and Usage Survey also found that there was a general paradox in Nigeria’s telecommunications market – of performance on the one hand and deficiency on the other – and that this paradox exists across all the sub- sectors of the market.

“For example, mobile telephony is experiencing huge growth simultaneous with a fixed sector in a downward spiral. The penetration of fixed telephony is a meagre 65,914 households, or 0.3% of total households in the country, in spite of the fact that the RIA ICT Survey found ample demand for both fixed and mobile telephony products.

As a result of this anomaly in the voice telephony market segment, there has been virtually no fixed-line competition (in voice, data or internet provision) to the mobile companies. The fixed sector has been experiencing a persistent downward slide, while the mobile networks have at times been overloaded with voice and internet traffic.

Consumer pressure on mobile networks is now creating significant quality of service (QoS) problems, as the vacuum in fixed services is putting a tremendous burden on mobile operators to deliver good quality voice, data and internet services – which could otherwise have been provided through fixed networks (if, inter alia, the regulation of the fixedsector had been effective).

“Internet uptake appears strong, but at the same time computer penetration is limited and fixed household internet is virtually non-existent. The RIA Nigeria ICT Survey of 2012 found that only 3.4% of households, or 747,025, have a fixed internet connection, and 62% of internet users go online primarily via their mobile phone. It has been reported that 58.1% of Nigerian web traffic was via mobile handsets and other mobile devices in November 2012 (StatCounter Global Stats, 2012). The poor penetration of fixed household internet is directly linked to absence of the fixed lines over which internet access products (e.g. ADSL) are typically delivered; low penetration of computers; and inadequate power supply”.

The RIA Nigeria ICT Survey found that the majority (62%) of non-internet users were eager to use the internet if it could be made available within roughly 30 minutes’ walking distance from where they reside. And 50% of mobile subscribers surveyed said that cost is the main limitation on increased calling activity while 60% of mobile subscribers said they would make more calls if costs were lowered.