Top mobile operators prepare for data war

Nigeria’s top four mobile operators – national carrier, Globacom, South Africa’s MTN, Bharti Airtel, and United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Etisalat are all

preparing for a firece price war in coming months as they hone innovative strategies to meet the ever-growing demands of data-hungry consumers, after riding the famed crest of the mobile phone explosion of the last decade. Globacom, is expected to launch Long Term Evolution (LTE) services on its network in the country on June 1, informed sources close to the development have said. LTE is the global standard for the fourth generation of mobile broadband (4G), supported by all major players in the telecommunications industry. With LTE, consumers will be able to stream music and video, upload, download and essentially do anything on the Web using mobile phones and tablets almost as fast as if we were at home on a broadband connection.

According to IT&Telecom Digest, Globacom will be the first mobile phone operator in Nigeria to launch the new technology service in Nigeria – unless another operator launches before June 1. But interestingly, the much anticipated launch will mark the beginning of the real data war among operators in Nigeria. MTN Group, the nation’s biggest operator by market share, has begun the process of acquiring Visafone Communications Limited, in a strategic move to strengthen its foothold on Nigeria’s burgeoning internet/data market. Industry observers however are of the view that the real interest is the CDMA operator’s spectrum. Globacom already has this valuable resource in its kitty, the battle now moves to which operator has the capacity to launch LTE services first. “You know Globacom doesn’t like to play second fiddle to anyone”, said a source who would not want to be named.

“So, it is very clear that this imminent launch of LTE on June 1 is to send a serious message: that Glo stays ahead of the pack,” the source said. Internet service providers such as Smile Communications and Spectranet are already providing services on the LTE platform; but this has not come home yet to mobile phone providers who control the bulk of subscriptions in Nigeria.  All four of the GSM operators, Airtel, Etisalat, Glo Mobile and MTN, currently have a haul of over 142 million active subscriptions as of February 2015. By offering 4G/LTE service, ISPs currently have an edge over mobile operators in broadband service provisioning. It gives them the capacity to provide sophisticated offerings well beyond mundane voice and data services. But interestingly, major ISPs only offer lightening fast services to customers in a hand-full of state capitals and cities like Lagos, Abuja and PortHarcourt.

Industry observers however are concerned that poor network coverage limits these ISPs from further maximising the advantage which they currently have over larger GSM operators. According to the GSM Association (GSMA), LTE is a mobile network technology that is being deployed by mobile operators on both the GSM and the CDMA technology paths.  Depending on the spectrum available, live LTE networks can deliver very fast data speeds of up to 100Mbps in the downlink and 50Mbps in the uplink. Designed to be backwards-compatible with GSM and HSPA, LTE incorporates Multiple In Multiple Out (MIMO) technology, the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) air interface in the downlink and Single Carrier FDMA in the uplink. This combination provides high levels of spectral efficiency and network performance, coupled with high network capacity and low latency.

LTE will support spectrum channel bandwidths from 1.4 MHz to 20 MHz and can operate in both paired spectrum (in FDD mode) and unpaired spectrum (in TDD mode). Although both LTE and WiMAX use the OFDMA air interface, LTE’s compatibility with existing GSM and HSPA networks enables mobile operators to continue to provide a seamless service across LTE and existing deployed networks. LTE networks have now been launched by mobile operators in Europe, Asia and North America. In the U.S., the largest CDMA operator, Verizon Wireless, for example, launched commercial LTE services at the end of 2010. According to experts, LTE will provide great boost to efforts to rollout broadband services across the country, besides making such services more robust and at better quality than the current experience.