Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says active steps are being taken to find lasting solutions to the frequent fibre cuts, infrastructure theft, network congestion, community access denial and other issues that have resulted to poor voice and data service quality for subscribers.
Also, these have subsequently caused huge revenue losses to Nigeria’s telecoms operators.
Wakil Bako, director, technical standards and network integrity, NCC, told BusinessDay that there were certainly issues of dropped calls and poor network quality across Nigeria, but the regulator was taking necessary steps to resolve the issues as soon as possible by working to ensure the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) bill was passed to criminalise vandals.
“Apart from the issues of theft and vandalism, we also have a lot of bad handsets and mobile devices smuggled into the country when NCC has not type-approved them. These bad devices come with voice interferences that contribute to poor quality for voice calls.
“The NCC is currently working with the National Assembly, the ministry of works, ministry of environment, security agencies and other ministries to ensure that there is a passage of the Critical National Infrastructure bill, so that those who are vandalising and stealing infrastructure are criminalised and the issue of road construction and cuts of fibre cables are minimised,” Bako said in an interview.
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Telcos in Nigeria, last week, urged the Federal Government to come to their rescue concerning vandalism and theft of their investments on infrastructure to provide communication service in the country.
Airtel said over 1,022 fibre cuts had occurred, disrupting its network just between July 2019 and February 11, 2020, and although they have worked with the Nigerian Civil Defence to arrest vandals, there had not been any successful prosecution to deter criminals, as the case ended up in the police stations.
Speaking at a media round table held at the Airtel Nigeria head office in Lagos, Emeka Oparah, director of corporate communications and CSR, Airtel Nigeria, said, “There are so many issues that we encounter, and it is unreasonable to think that we just sit down and do nothing about it because we are the ones that feel the hurt, as we are losing money by the minute. There was a time that one of our base stations was submerged in flood and although it wasn’t our fault, we had to quickly respond to that because customers would not want to hear stories.”
Oparah said declaration of telecoms infrastructure as critical national infrastructure by the government would help safeguard telecoms infrastructure, create better user experience and reduce revenue losses to telcos.
According to Oparah, 405 cases of the fibre cuts were as a result of road rehabilitation activities, and 617 cases due to vandalism. He urged the federal and state governments to hasten the approval process for fibre development as well as quicken the Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) approval process, saying these would help solve the problem of network congestion and network failure.
Also speaking, Adedoyin Adeola, vice president, network operations, Airtel Nigeria, said, “Telecoms operators are plagued with so many problems ranging from security issues to illegal signal boosters. While a network provider is working hard to restore a fibre cut due to vandals or activities of road construction workers, it also has to deal with illegal signal boosters which interfere with network quality and operated by unlicensed operators.
“Operators also have to wait endlessly for Right of Way approvals, EIA approvals and other approvals. Installations by telcos are also a huge target for thieves who cart away with inverter batteries, generators diesel, in addition to other daily and long-standing problems of multiple taxation and community issues”.
