The President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Mr Olusola Teniola, discusses some of the milestones, major challenges and the potential of the telecoms industry, in this interview with TOBI AWORINDE
For the sake of people who don’t know much about your association, could you give a brief description?
I am the sixth national president of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria. ATCON is an association that has existed since December 1993 and we are going into our 26th year of existence. We were formed by industry experts then to be a non-profit, non-political organisation that defends investments made in the industry, which to date is to the tune of $70bn and this takes the form of policy direction, policy formulation and influencing government to ensure that the regulatory and political environment, to a degree — and also government initiatives — are done in a manner that supports the growth of the industry and, most importantly, creates an environment that protects our investors’ investments. We have up to 135 active members, that is, telecoms companies, to date.
How easy or challenging has it been managing ATCON members since you assumed office as president in 2016?
One of the things that I have been very lucky to have is a team that has made things relatively easy for us to grow the association. We have a website for those who would like to join our association and would want to get to know a bit more about us. Also, we have a secretariat that is run by the Executive Secretary, Ajibola Olude, who with his team has been able to ensure that issues that are pressing are addressed in a timely manner.
We also send out weekly notices to our members to keep them up to date with what is going on and we have, I must say, members that are current with some of the issues, so we embark on courtesy calls to them. And these courtesy calls take the shape and form of probing and cajoling the issues (out of them). We go back to the secretariat to collate a majority of these meetings and then form an understanding and a position that the industry will take to government, especially our regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, and the Ministry of Communications. So, it’s been an interesting journey; I have been president now for three years. I’m in the last year of my final tenure and it’s been a pleasure to serve.
There is also the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, which people tend to confuse with ATCON. What would you say is the major difference?
The major difference really is that ALTON is led by my brother, Gbenga Adebayo, who has been driving ALTON for almost 10 years and he’s been the sole driver. ATCON is the umbrella of all (telecoms) associations, including ALTON, which is a subgroup of ATCON. We have other subgroups and I should have mentioned that in the beginning when I described ATCON. We also have the ISPs (Internet service providers), the phone device operators and others; we have diverse portfolios.
So, we see our association, ATCON, as the umbrella body of all other (telecoms) associations. ALTON specifically focuses on issues relating to the telcos, and the telcos being the ‘gang of four’ — the MNOs (mobile network operators). We also have them as members. So, we are happy to have ALTON in existence because they address issues that we may not be able to address in-depth. Their style of approach is somewhat different and so is ours. So, we see two associations addressing the same issues from different angles as a means to ensure that our issues are addressed appropriately.
The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority threatened to demolish about 7,000 telecoms masts and towers belonging to telcos for allegedly posing a danger to safe flight operations. Did you see it coming or did it come as a shock?
ALTON had informed ATCON at a public forum that this issue had been an ongoing dialogue with ALTON and the NCAA, so it was a shock not only to ALTON but to the industry that we have a government agency that is arbitrarily attempting to regulate an industry where they have no oversight and, not only that, issuing threats to destroy infrastructure that is deemed critical to the national development of our country. Seven thousand towers represent a huge population that will be impacted by the inability to make or receive calls, the inability to do daily transactions electronically, and that means not being able to transact using banking services, not being able to reach loved ones or contact hospitals. I could go on and on.
I think that if any agency of government feels that they can arbitrarily issue threats to destroy (critical infrastructure), then I think it is only right that ATCON, in conjunction with ALTON, speak with one voice to put a stop to this concern. Remember the issue around creating an enabling environment is a government responsibility. We can’t have one agency preaching enabling environment and another destroying or issuing threats around destroying (the enabling environment). Government should be about building an environment for its citizens and it should work hand in hand with ATCON and ALTON to ensure that issues that they feel should to be addressed are addressed appropriately in a constructive manner, not in a destructive manner.
One would expect that there would be consultations between ATCON and the NCAA on the issue before that announcement was made public. Have you engaged the NCAA since then?
We haven’t needed to because we believe that the Nigerian Communications Commission has intervened and that is the right approach for the association. We get involved when our members decide that we need to get involved. At that point in time, ALTON felt that they were addressing the issue through dialogue with the representatives, and especially the Director-General of the NCAA. So, they (ALTON) were surprised when they got a demand letter and a threatening letter from the DG of the NCAA. So, we equally support ALTON’s position that if they (NCAA) go ahead to destroy the towers, those towers will not be rebuilt and it will have implication, not only on the lives of the citizens, but it will also have a national security implication.
According to the allegation by the NCAA, there was an approval known as the Aviation Height Clearance, which wasn’t obtained before erecting the masts. Can you speak about the allegation?
Let’s put it in a manner that makes sense: there are towers along the flight paths. All those towers have AHC certificates. They have them; there is no argument about that. The argument that’s been brought to the attention of our members is that AHC should now be applied for, for all towers, including the 7,000. That is unacceptable because not all towers exceed the heights suggested by the NCAA.
Secondly, there was an argument made by the NCAA that the AHC should be renewed on an annual basis. The argument is that it should be a one-off because the towers are a fixed structure. They do not grow annually. So, having AHC demanding an annual renewal is deemed exploitative.
What is the current situation? Is it a one-off thing?
It’s a one-off at the moment, so there is no need to change the status quo and it should not apply to towers that are not on flight paths. It should only apply to towers that are on flight paths.
What airports are we talking about? Is it everywhere across the country?
That is for the NCAA to provide.
What are the requirements for getting the AHC certificate from the NCAA?
There is no specific requirement. When a tower is built, there are certain permits one applies for. The AHC is just one of many permits and those permits are obtained at the planning stage. Some of the towers have existed for almost a decade and those permits would have been obtained then, so why the sudden change of approach and philosophy? Clearly, it looks like the NCAA has the intention to generate revenue.
Who issues the certificate? Is it the NCAA?
They do.
The issue of flight safety cannot be compromised after all. Does it mean that obtaining the approval would then make flights safer?
The approvals have been given for towers on the flight path. There is no impact on safety. Those towers have a red light-emitting beacon; there is no cause for concern. They are safe and they therefore would not cause aviation safety issues.
Do you share the reservation of those who believe it is a way for the NCAA to make money and increase tax?
It seems like that because, in the past, this wasn’t an issue. Why is it an issue now?
Some of your members have complained about the cost of operations, especially erratic power supply, which is largely responsible for high tariffs in the sectors. On the average, how much do telecoms companies spend on maintaining their masts monthly?
In terms of the cost of building a tower, it can range from N25m to N30m and that would include buying a diesel set, which needs to be redundant — the batteries, inverters and Portacabin. That excludes the acquisition of the land and the rental pays. That is a sizable amount. We are looking at getting diesel fuel to those stations and then security provided at the stations. So, the operation cost of doing that, maintenance, can run up to between 25 and 33 per cent of the original cost of putting up the base station, which is N25m to N30m per site a year.
There are instances where family members fight over the choice of location for siting a mast because they see it as a way of making quick money. Do you still encounter that challenge?
That’s currently an issue, yes. Unfortunately, it is not peculiar to Nigeria; it happens everywhere in the world where demand for limited resource, which is land, goes for a premium and when they see that telecommunications companies are looking to expand or upgrade their networks, land rentals or acquisitions costs go up when they see that a telco wants to place its tower in that vicinity. So, yes, it’s a natural thing that we do encounter.
How much of a challenge is it for your association in terms of legal and financial constraints?
We currently have almost 40,000 towers in the country and I expect that to grow. So, it’s a challenge but not something that we have been unable to deal with in Africa and in the rest of the world.
There are some places in the country where residents or indigenes request for commission before allowing a mast to be erected. Is that true?
I can’t comment on that.
Some people believe that there are some remote communities in Nigeria that are still without mobile networks….
That is correct. There are 102 market gaps that we have identified through research, which represents 20 to 30 million Nigerians, who have never made a voice call because they have never seen a mobile phone in their lives, let alone get onto the Internet. They are in darkness.
Can you identify some of these areas?
It would be very reckless of me to start to identify those areas because it would be politically insensitive but they exist and we need to make sure we can roll out to ‘unserved’ and underserved parts of this country, so that we can cover all Nigerians to give them a chance to improve their lives and to be able to communicate as a basic human right in this country.
What is the strategy or target to be able to cover these areas?
There’s the Rural Telephony Project that the industry is currently thinking of. There are also certain initiatives being done by the Universal Service Provision Fund, which is part of the NCC, to ensure that certain projects are funded via the AOL (annual operating levy) that is paid for by us operators to ensure that those funds are dispersed to areas that need the most attention and ensuring that basic voice telephony is deemed a universal service access right in those communities.
Would you say we have enough telcos in Nigeria or is the system just hard to penetrate?
Two things: we don’t have enough to say that we’ve reached maturity in densification of networks to provide full service to all Nigerians. We just talked about the 20 to 30 million Nigerians that don’t have voice calls or have never made a voice call in their lives. So, it just shows you that there is still a demand for 20 to 30 million Nigerians, which is larger than quite a few European countries. So, we have a teledensity that’s hovering around 106 per cent. That shows you that in areas where we do have mobile voice telephony, we have seen multiple subscriptions. So, we are seeing that in that area, there is a level of maturity in the deployment of mobile telephony services.
What we do need is more innovative solutions and ways of financing those solutions and definitely a much more enabling environment to encourage current service providers, and the MNOs included, new entrant MNOs to be persuaded not to go into just the same cities where everyone has a mobile phone, but to be able to find a business case that allows them to address the ‘unserved’ and underserved parts of Nigeria where there are ample opportunities to grow one’s business. The difficulty is that with the lack of infrastructure and an enabling environment, then the business case is very hard to make. Therefore, what we’re seeing is that there is a level of consolidation going on in those areas where there is the highest concentration of service providers; they are after the same subscribers that already have multiple subscriptions.
We have heard reports of some MNOs, like Virgin and Econet, that have tried to break into the Nigerian market and some of the struggles they have had to face. What would you say is the biggest hurdles for new entrants?
The biggest hurdle is that when you operate in an emerging market like Nigeria, for instance, like any other emerging market, the underlying assumptions are different. One, lack of power: one of the biggest things when you’re coming into Nigeria is that you have to know how to manage power as a telco. Otherwise, your business case falls flat on its face. The second thing, and the most important, is that you’re dealing with a market where it is not as sophisticated as your more mature, developed markets in the western world. So, the demand level over and beyond the voice services is not there. There is an opportunity to leapfrog some of the services that are deployed in more developed countries and some of the more innovative solutions that will attract the youth, for instance. We have a very young demographic trend, whereas in other climes, the demographics may be more skewed to the middle-aged. Then, there is a great opportunity to address that. Those are the areas that are challenging because they have not been tried and tested in other climes before.
So, if you’re really at the point where you’ve deployed services that have got the low-hanging fruits, how do you retain them? By giving them innovative situations, not losing them to your competitors and also looking at the pricing issue because the cost of running an operation is deemed to be one of the highest in the world while the cost to the consumer is probably one of the lowest. So, prices are squeezing margins, and you have to be able to get the volume very quickly, otherwise you don’t stand a chance of introducing those innovative solutions that will differentiate you in the market, such as Nigeria.
A number of small businesses that were into selling recharge cards have folded up owing to mobile and Internet options. Is there no way telcos can accommodate these persons?
What you describe there is a technological evolution. It’s almost like the virtual recharge card playing out. So, instead of you scratching, which was the norm, with the advent of the Internet, you can now log onto a bank account that you may own, whether on your mobile device, tablet or desktop. Once you have that access, the movement of money is what’s needed to recharge your prepaid device. So, the recharge card concept was rather limited and it’s been rather limited in the areas where Internet penetration has increased. And as you know, the latest figures suggest that we are just hovering around 114 million Internet users. I use the words “Internet users” but not everyone has a device, though they have access to a device or a tablet that they can use.
With broadband penetration now set at 33 per cent subscription as of February 2019, it shows you that a lot of the urban and city dwellers, if they use the Internet, can pay bills, play games, make payments through their channels to recharge their phones. So, it has replaced the need to have scratch cards in certain areas but there are significant areas outside those other places where recharge cards make good business because, one, there is a lack of Internet deployment; two, the price of Internet is deemed very high because you need to consume your data; and three, the infrastructure is lacking. So, really, the only way to gain access to services is still to use the recharge card and use text messages to update your prepaid account.
Are there new job opportunities for people who are out of business from selling recharge cards?
If you retrain yourself, you can become a mobile app developer and make some money from there. But if you are looking just to resell recharge cards and those cards are no longer in existence, then you’re right, that business is gone. That business is being taken away from you because it’s now become virtual. So, there has to be another form of business that the umbrella society that was created has to go into.
There are some SIM cards that are in use that are still not registered. Why is this?
It is unfortunate that we haven’t been able to enforce a consistent and formalised process in the way and manner that prepaid accounts are allowed to be used. It is my understanding that emergency calls, info calls and certain calls should be allowed within a certain period of time before an account is recharged. What should happen, and if it could be enforced, is that any SIM card that is not registered should not be allowed to be used to make a voice call, including emergency calls. That’s my opinion because, if you allow a window of opportunity for SIM cards to not be registered but they can make a limited amount of calls, there is always the temptation with connivance that that limited time is then extended to never getting the SIM card registered.
Therefore, you have these instances on networks, where, as a prepaid platform, it only checks that the phone hasn’t been stolen and it is a valid Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number; it doesn’t check that the SIM has been applied. Global System of Mobile communication technology didn’t come with SIM card database registration. SIM card registration came after the GSM technology and it’s just an appendage to it, so a basic GSM voice call does not check if you have SIM card registration. It just checks that you have a valid MSISDN and it’s the valid MSISDN that you’re calling. The fact is that if that caller is present and you have credit in your account, it will allow the call to go through.
What about the security risk of callers using #31# to hide their caller ID?
That is different from SIM card registration. #31# or any other parameter you may use to suppress a caller ID has always been a GSM technology. In fact, this is a basic voice call parameter and feature that is allowed; anywhere in the world, you can suppress (a caller ID). The issue around that is that the ID that is not recognised or is unknown will cause some agencies some problems. But there is also a way to trace the MSISDN that was suppressed. So, I don’t agree that that capability is not being made available to security agents. It should be, if it isn’t already. You can read the suppressed MSISDN caller ID that is not transmitted to a mobile device.
In certain instances, there are issues of jammed lines, where you call someone and it connects with another number entirely. What is responsible for that?
There is some surveillance and tactical intelligence tours that are used in being able to carry out some operations, almost military type devices. Those are known; they are technologies that can jam reception and intercept voice calls. There are technologies that can be used, but they should be used appropriately in democratic settings after a court order has been issued. If you follow those processes diligently, then the technologic can be used for something good. If we don’t, technology is then widely abused, not only by public government officials but also the private sector to then carry out some of these behaviours you described. Unfortunately, this is very difficult to regulate unless there is proper enforcement by law (enforcement) agencies, Customs, and most importantly the NCC.
There doesn’t appear to be a strong relationship between the bank and telecoms operators, given the incidence of fraud and online transactions. Is ATCON doing anything about that?
We have a different take on this proposition. The telecoms industry and networks are the enabling platform. Consider it like the foundation of your house; other sectors use the same platform. It is assumed to be opaque to what goes on in those sectors. So, telecoms don’t intervene in the information sent by any sector. It’s just a carrier of the information. One could argue that the finance sector that is using the telecoms network has to put its own house in order because the very reason that someone can access someone else’s bank account is the problem. The bank account is not held by the telecoms operators; it’s held by the banks and the banks should secure the bank accounts through any means.
Blaming the telecoms for the inadequacies in their ability to protect accounts is very weak because cyber security attacks are carried out against banks, for instance. Why? Not to make a voice call, but to try and access funds that don’t belong to the attacker. So, it’s for the banks to strengthen not only their cyber security but the processes, procedures and protocol that they use in the telecoms environment to ensure that the enabling environment that they are trying to use is a firm foundation. There are other sectors that use the telecoms environment that don’t encounter the same problems that the banks are encountering. So, this is unique to the banks and that is why I say it is not a telecoms problem. It is a financial sector problem that is trying to ride on the telecoms network without doing its proper research and development to ensure that they strengthen their own systems and processes.
There were loads of complaints of unsolicited messages until the NCC intervened but the issue has resurfaced. Why won’t this problem go away?
If you don’t use the DND (Do-Not-Disturb) properly, then I suggest you use the DND. I used the DND for my grandmother and my relatives and such messages stopped.
How does one go about using the DND?
It’s easy; you just send a text message to the DND. If you get a message that comes in, send ‘STOP’ to 2442. It should stop. In fact, there is a menu (of options) if you don’t want to stop everything. But if you want a blanket sweep, type ‘STOP’ and send it to SMS code 2442. If that still doesn’t work, then dial 622 — that is the front desk office for the NCC — stating that this does not work.
Punch
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