1 Challenges Facing the Nigerian Telecoms Industry By Prof. G. O. Ajayi. Director General/CEO National Information Tech. Development Agency (NITDA) At NIGERIAN TELECOM SUMMIT Accelerating Access to Telecoms Congress Hall, Hilton Abuja. Thursday, May 2, 2002 By Prof. G. O. Ajayi. Director General/CEO National Information Tech. Development Agency (NITDA) At NIGERIAN TELECOM SUMMIT Accelerating Access to Telecoms Congress Hall, Hilton Abuja. Thursday, May 2, 2002

2 Africa has the lowest growth in teledensity of any developing region in the world. Has 12% of World population, but 2% of World’s main telephone lines. Average level of income is the lowest, but the cost of installing telephone line is the highest. Highest profit per telephone line and long waiting a period for telephone lines. Internet connectivity is 0.3% of the world-wide connectivity. Recent Statistics has it that there are about 3 million Internet users in Africa with only 1 million outside South Africa.

3 Sources: Mark Lottor, Encyclopedia Britannica, Eric Arnum Better Than Average Less Than Average Internet Global Infrastructure Diffusion GNP -World Bank, Host Count - M. Lottor

4 Recent efforts made by the Government towards ICT Development in Nigeria. Launched the New National telecommunications Policy in Sept Declaration of ICT as Naional Priority in National Policy on Information Technology developed and Launched (2001); Establishment of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). National Space Research and Development Agency (NARSDA) launched a program for the Nigerian Satellite System.

5 National Policy on Telecoms Steps in the past to restructure the telecommunication sector. –The establishment of the Nigerian Telecommunication Plc (NITEL). –The approval of the National Telecommunications Policy and the subsequent deregulation of the Telecommunications industry. –The above culminated in the establishment of the National Communications commission and the inauguration of its board in July –Though the board was later dissolved by the military regime, the present administration had it inaugurated again to sanitize the sector. –NCC now issues all licenses on the telecommunications services for private sector participation.

6 Telecommunications Market Potential in Nigeria Population: 120m Reg. Businesses : 100,000 Govt. Establishments : 50,000 Over 3 million subscribers on the waiting list Oil companies with high bandwidth req.

7 Need for an Information Technology Policy The Federal government has recognized the importance of IT as a major key to economic growth and sustainability. That culminated in a Workshop on the IT Policy in Abuja in March, The workshop brought together major IT stakeholders like –COAN, IT Association of Nigeria, CPN, all major stake holders in the Public and the Private sector. With the collaboration of several committees the IT Policy was produced and was approved by the Federal Executive Council in March, NITDA is the implementation body of the IT policy.

8 Nigerian National IT Policy The Vision To make Nigeria an IT capable country in Africa and a key player in the Information Society by the year 2005, using IT as the engine for sustainable development and global competitiveness. The Mission is to Use “IT” for:Education Creation of Wealth Poverty Eradication Job Creation Global Competitiveness

9 Sectoral Application of the IT Policy Human Resource Development Infrastructure Governance Research and Development Health Agriculture Urban and Rural Development Trade and Commerce Arts, Culture and Tourism National Security and Law Enforcement Fiscal Measures

10 Systems and Services resulting from the convergence in the ICT industry Electronic mail The world wide web (www) E-commerce and E-business Satellite Applications –Global Positioning Systems –Direct to home (DTH) Television transmission –The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) –Very Small Aperture Terminals, etc. –Mobiles telephone Optical fibre Video on demand and video conferencing Digital imagery Distributed Computing Globalisation of services

11 Challenges facing the Nigerian Telecoms industry Institutional Capacity Development Human Resource Capacity Development Infrastructure Capacity

12 Infrastructure Capacity Telephone Lines : –Fixed Lines: 750, 000 with only about 450,000 lines operational. –Mobile Lines: Less than 30,000 subscribers before the introduction of GSM in Aug Presently there are about 350, ,000 mobile subscribers in the country. Plans are on-line for a 2 nd National Operator. Guidelines and Processes has started. NITEL, the incumbent National Telecoms Operator has been privatized with government relinquishing 51% of its holdings to the New Private Partner; Installation of an optical fibre network along the national power grid will soon take off; Large number of VSAT operations for Internet Services by both the public and the private sector.

13 Challenges Infrastructure Capacity Limited Bandwidth –Its is pertinent for the Private Telecoms Operators (PTO) to join forces to develop backbone to carry all traffic. –RASCOM, a pan-African satellite organisation dedicated to providing Africa with its own satellite for relaying telephone, data, and television signals. –The SAT–3/WASC/SAFE optic fibre network with 9 landing along the coast of Africa will provide the connectivity of Africa to the global optical fibre backbone. –The project with a system capacity of 130Gbps, capable of supporting 6.3 million simultaneous telephone calls, will provide the much need bandwidth to the Internet for the continent. –A nationwide optical fibre network is therefore needed to prepare the nation for the multimedia, high bandwidth transmission.

14 Challenges Human Capacity There is an acute shortage of skilled telecommunication professionals in both the private and the public sector, The GSM operators had a hard time finding qualified Nigerians to employ when they started operations. Challenges –Restructuring periodically the university and polytechnic curricula in order to align them with the changing technologies. –Training of engineers through workshops and conferences in order to expose them to modern technologies. –Nigerian telecommunication engineers should also participate in ITU technical committees.

15 Challenges Human Capacity Recommendation: –NCC should take over the mantle of organising the participation of Nigerian telecom engineers in ITU technical committees in conjunction with the Ministry of Communication. –Encourage collaboration between the industry and the higher educational institutions through Industrial Training R&D Staff Exchange

16 Challenges Institutional Capacity Building Privatisation of NITEL must be successfully finalised soonest in the interest of growth in the industry. The issue of NITEL privatisation is slowing down the licensing process of the second national operator. GSM –GSM operators should solve the problems of high traffic charge congestion of network, interconnectivity with fixed lines and between subscribers of different GSM operators. –There is need for more switching centres, and provision of more reliable long distance transmission systems. Fixed Wireless Access Spectrum Allocation –The issue of use of unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) for commercial Internet purpose being addressed by ISPAN and NCC should be resolved.

17 Some Trends in Technology Mobile Telecommunication and Information Services. –Extensions to GSM (2G) via GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution), Wireless Acess Protocol (WAP), I-mode (2.5G) will allow transmission of higher data rates. –GPRS is being added to GSM to allow Packet (Internet Protocol [IP] Communications up to about 100kbps. –3G Systems will extend services to high-quality multimedia and to convergent networks of fixed, cellular and satellite components.The services include: Internet Browsing Online transaction (e-business) Company database access Large File Transfer Ubiquitous mobile access –Satellite Systems and servcies –IMT 2000

18 Some Trends in Technology High Altitude Platforms –Airships operating in the stratosphere at altitudes of about 21km. –Could help in the rollout of 3G mobile services and broadband services. –Can support greater than 10 million wireless local loops (WLL) customers in an area of 400km Diameter –Provide Wireless High-Speed Backbone services. –Can be used for the mega cities and for fostering IT penetration in the rural areas.

19 Trends in Technology E-Commerce E-commerce should be incorporated into our socio- economic development. Some Aspects of E-comerce include: –E-tailing or “virtual storefronts” on web sites. –The gathering of demographic data through web contacts. –Electronic Data Exchange (EDI). –Business-to-business buying and selling. –Security of business transactions.

20 Trends in Technology Smart Cards Smart Cards provide both memory capacity as well as well as computational capability. It can be used for different applications, which require strong security protection and authentication. To ensure interoperability of different smart card technologies, switching stations are built. The interconnection of different switching stations depend on the available telecommunication infrastructures. Smart cards are important ingredients to the development of an e-conomy in Nigeria. Businesses in the country have to live up to the challenge of this age by becoming part of the e- marketplace.

21 Recommendations Government –Government should facilitate the investment in the provision of modern telecom infrastructure. –Government should regulate the telecommunications industry but not technology. –Government should create policies that will encourage the emergence and use of new technologies in our telecommunication industry. Technology –The future will be about converged network infrastructure; IP telephony, video conferencing. –As we migrate from analogue to digital, we will similarly migrate from digital systems to IP systems in the near future. –A national backbone should be developed to cater for our increasing bandwidth requirements and to connect with the African optical fibre ring.

22 Recommendations There is need for a highly technical telecommunications workforce. Emergence of specialised telecommunication institutions should be encouraged. A public service inter-ministerial or inter-organisational committee made up of NITDA, NCC, NBC and others will be desirable in order to have a coordinated approach to the development of ICT in Nigeria. The availability of modern telecommunications infrastructures, skilled human resources in information and communications technologies and the creation of the right institutional climate will facilitate our leapfrogging to be become a key player in the global information society.

23 Thanks for the attention.