By Prince Osuagwu

Following hordes of complaints by subscribers over poor quality of service they are getting from telecom operators in recent times, Hi-Tech

Wale Goodluck

decided to talk to some of these operators. The first to respond to our call was MTN and here, the company’s Corporate Services Executive, Mr Wale Goodluck spoke on the issue and a lot of others. Excerpts

Of recent, there has been this issue of poor quality of service across the networks and we are beginning to wonder what could be responsible for this.

I must acknowledge that the quality is not where we would like it to be and this is really engaging the attention of the management of this organization. In fact, every employee of MTN now is focused on improving quality of service. There are challenges, and I’d say that it is more important to talk about fixing it than to talk about the challenges.

What are the steps you are taking to fixing the challenges…

I will tell you that there is an urgent need to increase capacity and network infrastructure deployment. Demand is still ahead of supply across the industry in Nigeria and operators must not relent on investing. We should not take our foot off the pedal. We must continue to invest aggressively. We still need a lot more base stations, a lot more consumer education. Today, I think that if I look at issues of quality, for instance in a city like Abuja, it is extremely difficult to build sites in Abuja and a lot of them are unavailable as a result of closures by one agency or the other and this is really affecting the quality of service in Abuja. As I speak to you today, I have in excess of 15_16 sites in Abuja that are unavailable, and these are sites that should be carrying traffic and putting a lot of relief into the network in Abuja. So we are dealing with these issues.

There is this speculation that since the operators are now co-joining the NCC in SIM registration now, there may be some compensation for this exercise and the 11 million you were said to have registered before now. Is it likely?

The SIM card registration exercise is a very topical issue in Nigeria and again I say, it is not alien to developing and emerging market all over the world. We have started since last year, we are registering all over the country. We have registration points across the business, our friendship centers in different parts of the country. We are happy that the NCC is now also coming on board because the more booths we have on the ground, the better and quicker, it will make complete registration happen.

MTN has distinguished itself and the regulator can testify to this in terms of how we have accelerated the SIM registration exercise. It’s something that we are committed to as an organization. The reality is that Nigeria is a big country and there are subscribers all over the country. It’s going to take a bit of time to register everybody because there are still a lot of things that are required to be done.

The NCC needs to come out a bit more with publicity campaigns to complement what the operators are doing to encourage Nigerians to come out and register. Nigerians typically have an aversion for coming to give their finger prints, having their photographs taken by strangers and giving up a lot of vital information. We need a lot of education and public enlightenment to assure people what this is for, what it is going to achieve and why it needs to be done and done like yesterday.

Having said this, yes, we are aware that the legislature, in the fulfillment of the statutory obligations has approved a budget for SIM registration for the NCC. We are not a beneficiary of that budget. I think that the budget is for the NCC to carry out the SIM registration exercise, using its third party contractors.

Still on this issue of SIM registration, the modality you are using is also being used by INEC. If you are required to harmonize your data base with INEC, are there no security implications for the citizens?

Data protection is very key and if you recall, this is not the first time that we are doing a data capture exercise in Nigeria, taking bio_metric details. We have had the National Identity Card exercise. We have had the census, your international passport. For all these, you give your details, your finger prints and photographs; and now the INEC registration exercise for the 2011 election. There will come a time when all this data hopefully will start to talk to each other and sort of validate each other. One day, we will have an integrated validated national data base, but there is a lot of work to be done in the back end, and this is not the responsibility of the operators. There are people who are statutorily charged with the collation, storage and security of data like this.

People always complain that it is difficult to get the details of callers that issue threats on the phone from MTN. Why is it that the common man cannot gain access to details of the person threatening them but influential people get details of a call log easily? For instance, the case against the President of the appeal court, some of the evidence tendered were call logs submitted by his accusers. Did MTN actually release that information and if you did, how strong is your customer protection policy?

What I will say is that we take very seriously the protection of our customers but we have to be guided by extant laws and regulations in Nigeria. If we do not exercise a system of checks and balances, then in the bid to aid somebody, you can actually jeopardize another person’s life. So one has to be extremely careful, such that, people cannot have access to anybody’s data without the proper documentation. So it’s either a court order or a request signed by a security agent of a certain rank and above and it’s important that we put in place these measures to ensure that the integrity of our network is guaranteed. The safety of our customers is also guaranteed. If your call details fall into the wrong hand, somebody can tell very clearly, what time you went to bed, the time you woke up, where you spent most of your time, who you are talking to, what time you called the person, which area you were when you made the call, all this information is available from CDR so we take extra precaution to ensure that people can only obtain CDR for valid reasons and in accordance with the law.

We are also duty_bound to provide information to the security agencies. When the security agencies come and ask us for CDR as we are statutorily empowered to do, they would not come and say we want the CDRs of Mr. XYZ. They would provide to the operator, a number and come with the necessary documentation empowering them to collect that information from us. We are duty_bound under the law to provide information to the security agencies and as such, we will provide the information, but we take a lot of steps to protect our customer data. I am not at liberty to tell you in details the measures we have taken to protect our customers but when people for instance want information, I can understand sometimes the circumstances, perhaps they have been threatened. We must go by the book and ensure that the reasons why you want these CDRs are valid. It’s not for some flippant reason or for you to use those CDRs to commit a crime or threaten the life of a person. Don’t forget that our licences also have obligations in them regarding the protection of customer data.

Sometime last year, we were in your office and said they are not yet ready to issue 4G and LTE licenses because he is not even satisfied with the 3G investment and I tend to agree with him because yes the GSM operators have made a huge investment as far as the 3G is concerned, it is yet to impact the industry.

I would say that when we talk about data, it is internet and internet is the number one driver for data services; internet and SMS. Those are the familiar type data services. There are also a lot of other things that are being run on the data network. A lot of people are talking 4G, long term evolution but the truth of the matter is that all these things, 2G, 3G, 4G is a function of speed; down_load and up_load speeds and what happens is that with more equipment, certain spectrum bands, you can provide greater throughput and faster services. I think maybe what the EVC was alluding to was that perhaps there is need for operators to have to improve their data services but in all honesty, I think there is data. Everybody is carrying a Blackberry and these are all smart phones, all sitting on the data network. Everything you do on your blackberry, the BBM, your emails and all that are sitting on the data network. It’s not the voice network that is doing that. A lot of people don’t often realize that they are actually using the data network, even the dongles, iPads are all sitting on the data network.

The Netbook is a learning tool and I know some time ago, you had an arrangement with HP for people to acquire these Netbooks, bundled with your internet service. Are we likely to see a prize reduction because the initial prize of the Netbook was about N70, 000 so that more schools can access this facility and introduce their students to ICT?

The way the world is going, we are going to see a convergence of terminals. The lines for instance between laptops, Netbooks, Notebooks and tablets and mobile phones are getting more and more blurred. We have seen what the iPad has done. So prices are going to come down. Our primary business is not the sale of terminal devices. What we do is to ensure that people can get quality terminal equipment. That’s why you find us in those kinds of partnerships with HP for Netbooks and things like that. Those Netbooks come bundled with an MTN SIM. It’s to add value and enrich the experience for subscribers.

In terms of the roll_out of Netbooks into schools and things like that, I think that with the convergence we are seeing in the area of terminal devices, the prices are going to come down. Technology is really moving and we would see greater penetration of terminal devices in schools. We may still be far from one Notebook, one Netbook or one Tablet per child in every school in Nigeria but what is important is that whatever the terminal, there is access to the super highway.