Africa: 1.2 Million New Mobile Subscribers Monthly in Nigeria
Efem Nkanga
Lagos
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Ernest Ndukwe, has disclosed that Nigeria records 1.2 million new subscriptions each month to its growing subscriber base which has crossed 54 million active connections.
Engr Ndukwe, who disclosed this at an interactive session with newsmen in Lagos at the weekend stated that the GSM revolution has transformed communications in the nation and has added to the economic growth of the nation which according to him is growing by 6% per annum.
He stated that the growth of mobile technology which will be seven years old this August has been so phenomenal that it has become a reference point for other countries.
“Since January this year, the telecom network has witnessed steady growth which currently outstrips 1.2 million lines every month, which indicates the fact that the growth rate is still not abetted. This also shows that Nigeria has witnessed economic growth because there is a linkage between acquisition of telecom services and economic improvement”, he said.
Commenting on the challenge of quality of service in the sector, Ndukwe stated that measures taken by the commission in the last few months has achieved notable improvements across the networks.
He stated that the commission had been active in following up with operators to find a permanent solution to issues of service quality.
One of the measures taken by the commission according to him is the issue of compensation which he described as the first in the country in which the NCC compelled operators to pay subscribers a token as compensation for poor services rendered. Other measures according to him taken by the commission include the acquisition of new systems for monitoring quality of service as well as stopping operators from further promos until they improve capacity etc.
On the registration of SIM cards being proposed by the commission and other stakeholders, Ndukwe stated that the commission decided on this course of action because of several reports from security agencies on increased criminal activities perpetrated through the use of mobile phones in the country.
He added that NCC was collaborating with the Nigerian security and intelligence agencies, and major telecom operators to ensure that henceforth all existing and prospective prepaid mobile phone services are registered in the country.
Ndukwe, who expressed optimism that the registration of sims will bring in sanity said that modalities were being worked out for immediate implementation of the scheme. He reiterated that identity registration is very important and called for a credible data base in the country that can be referred to curtail identity theft.
On the slow growth of fixed lines infrastructure in the country compared to mobile, Ndukwe stressed that fixed lines have never been known to grow as fast as mobile globally. He reiterated that though fixed line had good prospects and will grow in the future, it will not be like mobile’
He said that most of the land line infrastructures across the world today were built in the 1980s and the 1990s, which he said was the time that Nigeria missed the opportunity and that up to 2000, rather than progress, NITEL’s infrastructure has retrogressed.
He noted that with the fibre optics projects going on with some operators like Globacom focusing also on the fixed, their may be some hope. While agreeing that the cabling infrastructure is best for high bandwidth traffic, he however said some wireless systems are now carrying as huge bandwidth which is the reason why some of the operators have embraced it.
(ALLAFRICA)