The Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) estimates that the telecoms industry’s contribution to the economy could hit $4 trillion by 2025 on the back of efforts to increase broadband penetration in Nigeria.
Already, the telecoms regulator had raised the broadband penetration to over 28 percent as at end of October and is well on track to exceed its 30 percent target for the year.
At the media parley on Thursday in Abuja, Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman of the commission, noted that from over 500,000 connected lines in 2001, Nigeria now has about 165 million active lines, saying this increase has had a great impact on the GDP of the economy as statistics has shown that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration there is a corresponding 1.3 increase in the Gross domestic Product (GDP) of a nation.
He said, “Nigeria telecommunication has already contributed 10.43% to the GDP in the second quarter of 2018 and this is estimated to reach $4 trillion by 2025.”
He explained further that the NCC has put in place incentives for Infrastructure Companies (lnfracos) to encourage speedy deployment of infrastructure that would deepen broadband penetration as quickly as possible.
According to him, the list of lnfracos Licensed by the commission include: Raeanna Nigeria Limited, for the South-South Zone; O’odua Infraco Resources Limited for the South West Zone (Excluding Lagos); Fleek Networks Limited for the North-West Zone; Brinks Integrated Solutions for the North East Zone; Main One Limited for Lagos Zone; and Zinox Technologies Limited for the South East Zone.
“In line with our initiatives to encourage investors for Infracos to roll out, the Commission created provisions in its 2017 and 2018 budgets for subsidies to the Infracos. The government through the NCC has launched the open Access Model Broadband deployment. As a prelude to the above, 2.3GHz was issued to Bitflux Consortium, Six of the 14 slots available on 2.6GHz t0 MTN Nigeria and two dots to Openskys. Six slots are still available for assignment”, he said.
As part of efforts to empower consumer protection, Umar said that the commission has introduced mobile number portability to cushion subscribers’ anxiety of changing networks by purchasing SIMs indiscriminately adding that the commission has engaged the customers through various outreaches programs and town hall meeting to ensure customer satisfaction.
“We declared 2017 the year for network providers to underscore the importance it attaches to the consumers, we dedicated a short code 2442, “do not disturb,” to enable the consumers opt out of unsolicited SMS, and we also have a toll free line for secondary consumer complaints,” he said.
Speaking on the resolution of Resolution of the fine against MTN, Danbatta disclosed that MTN has so far paid N165billion, and assured that the rest payment to be made according to agreement.
Sunday Dare, executive commissioner, Consumer Stakeholders Forum of the commission said that commission has found a technological solution to end call masking in Nigeria as it hopes to achieve 80% reduction in call masking adding that the menace has over the years caused the global telecommunications a lost of about $60 billions annually.
According to him, call masking/refilling is basically when an international call is terminated in Nigeria as a local number. The perpetrators have ulterior motive of profiting from price differentials between international and local calls termination rates.
He said, “When you look at the journey so far, 2016, in 2017, we started investigations. We moved from reducing it to 24% to 34%, I think the most critical point is that we have tried to look for a technological solution to solve what is a slight technical problem. As I speak, now we have found a solution after the prove of concept. That solution has been tried in Lagos South West and about 12 people have been arrested in the basement of a house and a few cars in which you have the boxes in their booths.
“We have tried that concept, it is working and we hope to launch it in January. If it is launched in January; I can assure Nigerians that before the end of 2019, we would have had 80% reduction in call masking,” he added.
“We are happy to say for the last eight months, the NCC took very proactive measures, investigations we worked with our taskforce to have been able to reduce the incidence SIM boxing in this country by 34%.”
According to him, the global world loses between $54m to $60m annually to call masking stressing that not confirmed amount for Nigeria.
He said, “We don’t have the exact figures for Nigeria but globally $54-$60 is lost to call masking. Which shows that it is a global menace, which is not specific to Nigeria and it is possible because of innovative technology that is available. We talk about the VIOP, which is Voice Over Internet Protocol, we talk about the OTT; Over The Top platforms where you do WhatsApp and all other video calls. These are innovations and technologies that allows for some if this to happen,” he said.
“As a Commission, we have discovered that call masking is being perpetrated with small movable devices called SIM boxes, which are electronic boxes loaded with SIM Numbers. A SIM box is has capacity to receive and transmit calls undetected. However, the challenge is that these SIM boxes are never type-approved by the Commission, a clear indication that they are being used illegally in Nigeria.”
Speaking further, Dare explained that Nigeria has achieved 30.9% broadband penetration exceeding the set target of 30% by the end of this year and that N36 has been deducted from subscribers over the last five months and that the Commission is investigating it.
