By Technology Times Reporter

Abuja, Nigeria. August 30, 2007. A recent directive by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) that operators should suspend all promotional activities has claimed its first casualty in second national operator (SNO), Globacom Limited.

In the wake of large-scale drop in quality of service among mobile networks in the country, the regulator had directed the big three of MTN, Globacom and Celtel Nigeria to suspend all promotional activities that will lead to uptake of their phone lines.

NCC spokesman, Dave Imoko announced today that the regulator fined Globacom the sum of N5million for breaching the directive to suspend its promo and improve on quality of service (QoS) on its network.

Also, Globacom will pay half a million naira for each day it defaults “for every day following the expiration of the 14-day period during which the earlier fine ought to have been paid”, says NCC.

According to Imoko, NCC had issued a direction to Globacom on July 6, 2007 stating among others that “Glo should not embark on and also discontinue any promotional activities that could directly or indirectly degrade the Quality of service on its network for a period of ninety days in the first instance”.

According to him, “in spite of the clear terms of the said Direction, Glo on July 23, 2007 published an advertisement on page 66 of ThisDay newspaper and commenced promotional activities which has the effect of directly encouraging subscribers to make more minutes of call and thus further deteriorating the quality of service on its network in contravention of the Direction.”

The regulator says it is deriving its powers from the provision of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, Regulation 15 of the Nigerian Communications (Enforcement Processes, etc) Regulations 2005 and the Direction dated July 6, 2007, which had made it on July 30, 2007 impose the N5m fine the SNO.

Imoko adds that, “despite the expiration of the 14-day period within which Globacom should have paid the fine, it has failed, refused and neglected to pay the fine. Apart from the additional N500,000.00 (five hundred thousand naira) to be paid by Globacom for everyday the fine remains unpaid, the Commission will not attend to any regulatory request made by Globacom during the period. The Commission will not condone any flagrant refusal to comply with its Directions by a licensee.”

Nigeria had to come from a goal down to beat Colombia 2-1 in the second
round of the Under-17 World Cup in South Korea.
The win sets up a quarter-final clash with Argentina on Sunday for the
Nigerians.
Colombia opened the scoring in the 62nd minute through Santiago Trellez.
Substitute Sherrif Isa grabbed the equaliser for Nigeria just two minutes
after replacing King Osanga in the 76th minute.
Then with just seven minutes left on the clock Yakubu Alfa scored the winner
for Nigeria.
Ghana are also in the quarter-finals where they will be playing Peru on
Saturday.
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Ghana U-17 stun Brazil

Ghana face Peru in the quarter-finals on Saturday

Ghana knocked tournament favourites Brazil out of the under-17 World Cup in
South Korea with a 1-0 win on Wednesday.
Isaac Donkor scored the only goal of the game with a deflected shot on 51
minutes.
The Black Starlets played the entire second half of the game in Gwanyang
with ten men after Francis Boadi was sent off a minute before the break.
They were very effective on the counter-attack against the skilful
Brazilians.
Ghana will play Peru in the quarter-finals on Saturday in Changwon.
Meanwhile, Tunisia suffered a 3-1 defeat in extra time against France. in
another second-round tie.
France took the lead just before half-time with a free-kick from Henri
Saivet, but Nour Hadhria gave the Carthage Eaglets the equaliser four minutes
after the break with a stunning 25-metre drive.
It was still 1-1 after 90 minutes, but France scored twice in extra time
through Damien Le Tallec.
Tunisia had been reduced to ten men after 76 minutes, when Mohamed Karoui
was sent off for a foul.
The resultant penalty was saved by goalkeeper Habib Tounsi.
Nigeria play Colombia on Thursday in a second round match in Gwangyang.

Govt to retain 41% stake in NigComSat

By Everest Amaefule, Abuja

Published: Tuesday, 28 Aug 2007

The Federal Government will retain a 41 per cent stake in the Nigerian Communications Satellite, which has been slated for privatisation.

The Minister of Science and Technology, Mrs. Grace Ekpiwhre, had a fortnight ago obtained the approval of the Federal Executive Council for the sale of the company, which put a communications satellite in the orbit on May 13.

However, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, which has been mandated to carry through the privatisation of the satellite company, is waiting for the extract of the resolution of FEC approving the sale of equity.

Our correspondent also learnt that private sector players would be able to buy 49 per cent equity in the satellite company while 10 per cent stake would be reserved for workers.

It was further learnt that one investor would not be allowed to acquire more than 10 per cent equity in the company to ensure that control does not defeat the purpose for establishing the venture.

The Managing Director of the company, Mr. Ahmed Rufai, told our correspondent on the telephone that the original intention was a private-public sector partnership so that the company could enjoy the best synergy from the two sectors.

He said wholesome privatisation of the organisation was not in the best interest of the security of the nation because the satellite could be put into strategic use to secure the nation's critical infrastructure.

A spokesman for BPE, Mr. Chigbo Anichebe, confirmed to our correspondent on the telephone that the privatisation agency had held exploratory talks with the management of NIgComSat.

According to him, however, the process can only be taken forward when BPE receives FEC's resolution on the exercise.

The resolution will enable the privatisation agency to meet officially with the management of the NigComSat to iron out critical issues concerning the sale of the company, he said.

The management of NigComSat and that of the Nigerian Communications Commission have been quarrelling over the satellite company's quest for 3G spectrum and licence to go into telecoms services.

This led Ekpiwhre and her counterpart in the Information and Communications, Mr. John Odey, to set up a Joint Consultative Committee led Mrs. Esther Gonda, a director in the Ministry of Information and Communications, to resolve the imbroglio.

To circumvent NCC rules that a government company should not go into commercial telecoms services, it was decided to kick start the process of privatisation of NigComSat through a memo to FEC.

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August 28, 2007

Can NIGCOMSAT 1 bring down call rates?

By MATTHEW AYEGBA


IT was in a conscientious agreement that that journalists who are regarded as the fourth estate in the society expressed their opinion about the new Nigeria Satelllite , NIGCOMSAT 1 which they regarded as another white elephant project by the FGN.

It was at a press briefing in Lagos organized by ATCON for her Energy and power seminar but one thing led to the other and the media personalities that where there had to air their view on the progress of the telecom operators in the country.

The question to the ATCON president was what he thinks the proposed plan by NIGCOMSAT to bring down the tariffs of call in Nigeria by charging N9.00 per minute?

But rather than allow the ATCON boss to answer the question, they media men took the responsibility. The first servo was fired by Sonny Aragba, IT editor Guardian Newspapers who explained that what NIGCOMSAT was proposing was not possible except its not operating within the Nigerian telecoms environment.

"As far as I am concerned, NIGCOMSAT is a prestige investment. N9.00 tariff is not realistic basic infrastructures, no base stations which make their business plans nonsense." According to him in telecoms "there is what is called handshakes across platforms, the various networks are not operating independent of the other. There is an interconnect rate between the networks and if they come into the industry are they not going to operate within the this premises or are people that are on their networks the only ones who can call themselves"?

And with that rhetoric it appears that the dream of NIGCOMSAT to contribute to the telecoms development through GSM services provision in the country may never come through in the nearest future.

"Where are the subscribers, MTN, Celtel and Glomobile have over 30 subscribers between them so where are the subscribers that they want to provide the services for at the price they are talking about"? Asked Jonah Ibomeh IT Editor Punch Newspapers. He is of the opinion that if NIGCOMSAT even wants to do what they are taking about they should be able to have the infrastructures. According to him NIGCOMSAT would have to build base stations across Nigeria which would take many years, "so that the man in Maiduguri who has no network in his place can have network but that will take many years and who says MTN for instance wouldn't have expanded its reach before then."

He argued further that NIGCOMSAT is still indebted to the Chinese Government to the tune of $ 200.000 million thereby making it difficult for the satellite organization to be able to expand very easily because they would need funding for such expansion.

On his part, the ATCON president commended the Nigeria media men saying that he is happy with their capacity to truly analyze the industry saying that they are stakeholders and are very much informed about the industry as such.

He argued that NIGCOMSAT should be privatized because its not expected that government that should focus on regulation of the industry should via into service provision thereby competing with the operators that it should be regulating.

President Nigeria Internet Group, NIG, Engr. Lanre Ajayi in argreement with Ekuwem said that NIGCOMSAT must not be seeing to engage in telecoms business because that will distort the already laid rules which according to him amounts to policy summersault that will make stakeholders to be discouraged in further investment in the IT sector of the Nigerian economy.

He said : "NIGCOMSAT having done very well by launching the satellite should concentrate its efforts in selling the international bandwidth to operators from within and outside Nigeria.

"But by the time they are competing with the client they would have established distrust between them and their clients and potential ones. You will recall that this is what NITEL did wrong with SAT 3. Rather than selling bandwidth, they want to go into retailing. This is the mistake that should not be repeated with the NIGCOMSAT." He said.

When contacted to over the issue,the Spokesman of NIGCOMSAT said that NIGCOMSAT has the potential to develop into a huge commercial enterprise with the ability to compete in the satellite market with similar commercial entities.

" The multiplier effect of full utilization of NIGCOMSAT 1 is certainly going to transform the Nigerian society."

NigComSat-1, Nigerian communication satellite became the first African geosynchronous communication satellite, when it was launched on 13 May 2007, aboard a Chinese Long March 3B carrier rocket, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China. The spacecraft will be operated by NigComSat and the Nigerian Space Agency, NASRDA.

It will provide coverage to many parts of Africa, and the Ka-band transponders will also cover parts of Italy.

How to achieve cheaper GSM rates, by NCC 28/8/2007


Sharing of masts by Global System for Mobile Telecommunications (GSM) operators will check the littering of sky-lines with towers and reduce the cost of providing telecommunications services, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said.

"Any savings made from the sharing of masts can be passed unto consumers,'' an NCC board member, Dr Bashir Gwandu said.

He said the regulatory body, through the Universal Service Provision Funds (USPF), had already decided to give incentives to operators to co-locate on some basic facilities, instead of multiplying masts when rolling out networks.

Gwandu, who is an NCC Executive Commissioner, told reporters in Abuja that the commission had started the evaluation and processing of licence applications from some companies to provide co- location sites.

According to him, the companies in conjunction with operators are to map out sites for the project.

He said the companies would negotiate with the operators on commercial terms and also streamline the spread of towers and other basic facilities for supporting the sites such as generators and cooling systems.

The mobile phone industry began in 2001 with an increase of subscribers from less than 400, 000 to 40 million.

Most of the operators had been erecting multiple towers in specific areas of advantage to host their Base Transceiver Stations (BTS).

They recently embarked on rolling-out of Fibre Optic Cables on the same routes along major roads.

"Studies in some countries like India indicate that on some towers, there are more than four GSMs, CDMA operators as well as four microwave antennae.

"There are cases of four GSM and two CDMAs on a single tower which belonged to telecom companies like Airtel, Idea, MTNL, Hutch, Reliance and TTSL.

"As a matter of fact, there are reported cases of some towers carrying antennae belonging to 12 GSM operators, depending on bandwidth assignment and co-ordination, six CDMA and six macro antennae, so co-location should be seen as a money saving strategy, '' he said.

Gwandu said the sharing of some facilities like fibre optic cables, however, had to do with trust as they carried the traffic from many operators.

"It is like giving your blood line to a competitor," he added.

Gwandu said the regulatory body had put together anti-trust laws to check any operator likely to infringe on the interests of other companies to gain undue advantage.

" There was no need to co-locate initially because the industry was just coming up and the operators needed to be encouraged to build network transmission infrastructure to support their networks, '' Gwandu said.

The NCC commissioner said the telecommunications operators could cut cost on fueling, security and civil works by sharing their masts.


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