Since the advent of mobile telecommunications operators who deployed the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) technology about 16 years ago, one critical issue that has dominated Nigeria’s telecommunications space has been poor quality of service (QoS) occasioned by inadequate power supply.
Despite the licencing and privatisation of electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) and Generating Companies (GENCOs) in the last few years to improve power supply, not much has improved in electricity such that telecom subscribers have to contend with mobile operators battling to provide their own electricity power.
Poor quality of service can be seen in the form of dropped calls, undelivered short message service (SMS), poor mobile internet service, infrastructure vandalisation, theft of diesel at base stations by hoodlums, etc.
According to the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), telecom subscribers in Nigeria lose an average of N730 billion annually to poor quality service. The ATCON said this could have been addressed if there was steady power supply from the mains so that telecom operators could connect their networks directly to the national grid as it is done on other countries. However, in Nigeria, mobile operators generate and distribute their own power supply for telecom services.
For instance, MTN Nigeria spends N30.5 billion annually on the purchase of diesel. This amount, experts said, could be used to build another 5,000 base stations which could have helped improve the quality of service in Nigeria and probably contribute to lower call rates.
A telecom expert said that Nigeria’s patchy power infrastructure has long been an obstacle for the country’s telecoms operators. In a country with about 25,000-30,000 Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and a need for about twice that number over the next 10 years, the power infrastructure challenge is especially nagging. As at 2012, MTN rolled out over 6,700 2G sites and over 1,600 3G sites bringing the total number of sites to over 7,000.
It deployed the most expansive fibre optic (over 8,530 km) and microwave infrastructure (Yello bahn 11,500km) in sub- Saharan Africa. Its core network infrastructure has network nodes with hundreds of switch sites, Mobile Switching Centres (MSCs), Transit Switching Centres, Home Location Registers, 131,797 TRUs, 26 Fixed network RDLUs and over 12,000 generating sets supporting network operations across the country.
MTN today has over 10,000 base stations and is as well the network with the largest subscribers, over 63 million. It bears the brunt of the quality of services issues. Analysis shows that smaller telecom operators spend around N15 billion-N18 billion a year in diesel costs to power up their base stations. Such costs account for about 60 per cent of operators’ network costs.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of MTN Nigeria, Ferdi Moolman, affirming these huge investments in energy said, “We have invested more than $16 billion in Nigeria over the past 15 years. Our top priorities are to improve network and service quality. We have put in place the operating and management structures, as well as made critical investments, to ensure that we improve our competitiveness in 2016.”
The CEO of Airtel Nigeria, Mr Segun Ogunsanya, on his part said, “The power costs of a site connected to the power grid are only about 1/6th those of a fuel-powered site, but only about 10 per cent to 15 per cent of base transceiver stations are connected to the electric power grid. Primarily, because of fuel costs, the average network costs in Nigeria are twice to thrice higher than in a number of other African markets. The implications of such absence of reliable power infrastructure are far-reaching.”
According to the executive secretary, Association of Licenced Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbolahan Awonuga, the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications, LTE operator and internet service providers have remained the largest consumers of diesel in Nigeria. They spend an estimated N175 million daily or N45 billion monthly on diesel for powering their Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) nationwide.
This meant that a total of N540 billion was spent by the operators to power diesel generating sets in the year, a figure that might have increased this year, going by the expansion of base stations across the country and the fluctuation in the price of diesel. The operators in the sector have always relied on generating sets in an industry that does not tolerate recurrent downtimes. Awonuga noted that the decision by the telecom operators to outsource most of the sites to tower operators has not significantly reduced the cost of managing the sites. This, he noted, was because the cost of managing the sites were passed to the service providers who in turn pass it down to telecom consumers.
According to the Ericsson Mobility Report 2015 released in November last year, mobile data traffic in Q3 2015 was 65 per cent higher than in Q3 2014, largely driven by increased video consumption on mobile devices.
“Almost 70 per cent of all mobile data traffic will be from video by 2021. Apart from mobile phones, there will also be a multitude of other connected devices communicating. Out of a total forecast of 28 billion connected devices – more than 15 billion will be Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and consumer electronic devices by 2021,” the report reads in part.
Already, telecom operators have moved into the fourth generation long term evolution (4G LTE) era deploying new technologies that allow mobile devices to access high bandwidths of data.
Telecom consumers need more data capacities for videos, internet and video calls, the cost of running two generators on ease base stations may triple if telecom operators are not given direct and steady electricity direct to the national grid. Government need to look into this area that is dragging down expansion of telecom services and give telecom operators uninhibited access to the national grid.
Despite the licencing and privatisation of electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) and Generating Companies (GENCOs) in the last few years to improve power supply, not much has improved in electricity such that telecom subscribers have to contend with mobile operators battling to provide their own electricity power.
Poor quality of service can be seen in the form of dropped calls, undelivered short message service (SMS), poor mobile internet service, infrastructure vandalisation, theft of diesel at base stations by hoodlums, etc.
According to the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), telecom subscribers in Nigeria lose an average of N730 billion annually to poor quality service. The ATCON said this could have been addressed if there was steady power supply from the mains so that telecom operators could connect their networks directly to the national grid as it is done on other countries. However, in Nigeria, mobile operators generate and distribute their own power supply for telecom services.
For instance, MTN Nigeria spends N30.5 billion annually on the purchase of diesel. This amount, experts said, could be used to build another 5,000 base stations which could have helped improve the quality of service in Nigeria and probably contribute to lower call rates.
A telecom expert said that Nigeria’s patchy power infrastructure has long been an obstacle for the country’s telecoms operators. In a country with about 25,000-30,000 Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and a need for about twice that number over the next 10 years, the power infrastructure challenge is especially nagging. As at 2012, MTN rolled out over 6,700 2G sites and over 1,600 3G sites bringing the total number of sites to over 7,000.
It deployed the most expansive fibre optic (over 8,530 km) and microwave infrastructure (Yello bahn 11,500km) in sub- Saharan Africa. Its core network infrastructure has network nodes with hundreds of switch sites, Mobile Switching Centres (MSCs), Transit Switching Centres, Home Location Registers, 131,797 TRUs, 26 Fixed network RDLUs and over 12,000 generating sets supporting network operations across the country.
MTN today has over 10,000 base stations and is as well the network with the largest subscribers, over 63 million. It bears the brunt of the quality of services issues. Analysis shows that smaller telecom operators spend around N15 billion-N18 billion a year in diesel costs to power up their base stations. Such costs account for about 60 per cent of operators’ network costs.
The chief executive officer (CEO) of MTN Nigeria, Ferdi Moolman, affirming these huge investments in energy said, “We have invested more than $16 billion in Nigeria over the past 15 years. Our top priorities are to improve network and service quality. We have put in place the operating and management structures, as well as made critical investments, to ensure that we improve our competitiveness in 2016.”
The CEO of Airtel Nigeria, Mr Segun Ogunsanya, on his part said, “The power costs of a site connected to the power grid are only about 1/6th those of a fuel-powered site, but only about 10 per cent to 15 per cent of base transceiver stations are connected to the electric power grid. Primarily, because of fuel costs, the average network costs in Nigeria are twice to thrice higher than in a number of other African markets. The implications of such absence of reliable power infrastructure are far-reaching.”
According to the executive secretary, Association of Licenced Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbolahan Awonuga, the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications, LTE operator and internet service providers have remained the largest consumers of diesel in Nigeria. They spend an estimated N175 million daily or N45 billion monthly on diesel for powering their Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) nationwide.
This meant that a total of N540 billion was spent by the operators to power diesel generating sets in the year, a figure that might have increased this year, going by the expansion of base stations across the country and the fluctuation in the price of diesel. The operators in the sector have always relied on generating sets in an industry that does not tolerate recurrent downtimes. Awonuga noted that the decision by the telecom operators to outsource most of the sites to tower operators has not significantly reduced the cost of managing the sites. This, he noted, was because the cost of managing the sites were passed to the service providers who in turn pass it down to telecom consumers.
According to the Ericsson Mobility Report 2015 released in November last year, mobile data traffic in Q3 2015 was 65 per cent higher than in Q3 2014, largely driven by increased video consumption on mobile devices.
“Almost 70 per cent of all mobile data traffic will be from video by 2021. Apart from mobile phones, there will also be a multitude of other connected devices communicating. Out of a total forecast of 28 billion connected devices – more than 15 billion will be Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and consumer electronic devices by 2021,” the report reads in part.
Already, telecom operators have moved into the fourth generation long term evolution (4G LTE) era deploying new technologies that allow mobile devices to access high bandwidths of data.
Telecom consumers need more data capacities for videos, internet and video calls, the cost of running two generators on ease base stations may triple if telecom operators are not given direct and steady electricity direct to the national grid. Government need to look into this area that is dragging down expansion of telecom services and give telecom operators uninhibited access to the national grid.
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