By Prince Osuagwu

Unless this initial posture is mere icing on the cake, known in the local parlance as initial gra gra, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC’s  new Executive Vice Chairman, Prof Umar Danbatta seems unruffled by challenges of the telecom sector. The man is talking tough already.  No wonder, he, first of all, ruffled feathers at the commission before ever sitting down – an apparent signal that he is prepared to attack both the problems of the sector and those who would not quickly fall into the same page of action with him.

Umaru Garba Danbatta, New NCC boss

At first he did a quick rejig of few offices and their officers, apparently to test the resolve of the people to work.  And now, he has made his agenda clear: the principles of universal service which makes quality of service an acceptable global norm is sacrosanct.

Telecomregulation

What can generally be understood from the short speech of the new EVC as he assumed office last week is that his NCC would focus on those internationally-acceptable ideals in telecom regulation, enshrined in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) charter, that make quality of service a compelling attraction for the achievement of universal service.

“The concept of universal access is premised on three ‘A’s, as the hallmark of universal access and they include Availability of service, Accessibility of Service, and Affordability of service. Those will dictate at all times what we do, and I am sure those were the dictating parameters for improvement in the networks.

Much as one does not expect telecom operators in Nigeria to read between the lines of this last statement, Danbatta was not also ready to let his statement attract different interpretations. He explained himself in very clear terms: “I want to pledge that I will bring to bear, my wealth of experience in tackling the issue of quality of service in order to meet the expectations of the public that we are servicing,”

Despite the astronomical growth in mobile subscriptions from a paltry 400,000 in 2001 to over 148 million active lines, with 88 million of these mobile lines being used to access Internet,, teledensity increasing significantly to over 104 per cent from less than one per cent in the last 13 years of telecoms liberalisation, Quality of telecom services has been a major headache in the sector.

The Key Performance Index, KPI introduced by the administration of the outgoing EVC, Dr Eugene Juwah, exposed how poorly the Nigerian subscribers were served by the telecom operators and in many occasions fines were imposed on them over these breaches. But, that on its own did not solve the problem.

Neither did the Mobile Number Portability which was introduced to help subscribers move from one poor network to a better one without losing the original number, because according to the subscribers, the operators and the quality of services they offer were not too different from one another.

Majorconcerns

However, the new NCC boss says there is a way out and according to him, this is through collaborations. He challenged the staff of the commission for dedication, industry players for co-operation and all stakeholders for full support and swore that if all these are available, no problem of the sector will be insurmountable.

One of his major concerns was that Nigeria needed to sustain its position as one of the fastest-growing telecoms markets in Africa and a prime telecoms regulator in the continent. “We will be able to judiciously use the resources at our disposal to ensure that we maintain this position in a manner that will enhance the image and prestige of the Commission as well as serve as a reminder to government, the important role that this agency can play in improving the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

According to him, “This we can only do if all of us live up to our responsibilities as ambassadors of the Commission, and in these, I urge everybody’s cooperation to enable us accomplish this very important task for the country.”

Stakeholders’ expectations

Speaking, President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Lanre Ajayi, said, as a familiar stakeholder in telecommunications industry, Danbatta is expected to bring his wealth of experience to bear in confronting the challenges of the telecom industry in Nigeria.

Capturing the key challenges which Danbatta needed to focus on, Ajayi said: “Recognising the power of ICT in modern governance and socio-economic development, we advise the incoming EVC of NCC to ministration to address issue bothering on Right of Ways (RoW), multiple taxations, promotions of Nigerian local content, vandalism of telecoms infrastructures, promotion of e-services as well as acceleration of the implementation of the broadband plan.”

Also, aside challenges around land-mile broadband deployment, a telecoms analyst, Mr. Akin Akinbo, advised the NCC to focus on deepening access to adequate spectrum bands, which he said, was key to ensuring faster broadband penetration, which currently stands at 10 per cent.

“Currently, we are not doing well in the area of broadband as we have done in the voice segment. In the voice segment, we keep meeting and surpassing forecasts. So, at the rate at which we are growing in the area of broadband growth, something drastic need to be done if we desire to meet the 30 per cent penetration by 2018,” he said.

In line with her National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2013-3018, Nigeria has an auspicious plan to increased broadband penetration from six per cent in 2013 to 30 per cent in the next three an half years.

Consumer as king

Meanwhile, the President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Mr. Deolu Ogunbanjo, has said Danbatta,s leadership would do well by putting consumer protection at the earth of telecoms regulations. According to him, the problem of unsolicited short messaging service (SMS), for instance, is another area that has become ‘uncalled-for and annoying’ which, he said, had not been properly addressed to instill the kind of sanity needed in this regard.

“We believe that there are challenges but we do not believe these identified challenges are insurmountable. Therefore, Let Danbatta see consumer protection as the core regulatory pivot to bring about more improved services,” he said.

Although, the NCC has, over the years, come up with several measures to address some of the issues, the mobile network challenges continue to bite harder on subscribers across all networks because these measures have not been fully implemented with consequences.