By Aaron Ukodie
The Association of Licensed Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ALTON) has identified several areas it wants the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, to intervene and act upon so as to bring further growth to the ICT industry.
The association, which is the umbrella body of telecommunication operating companies in Nigeria, made the request when it recently visited the minister, in company of the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Professor Umar Danbatta.
The ALTON, in their requests and suggestions handed to the minister by the chairman of the association, Gbenga Adebayo, wants Pantami to:
- Develop a Digital Economy Strategy in consultation with the National Economic Council in partnership with the Minister to develop the Strategy.
- Facilitate the issuance of an Executive Order (EO) to designate telecom network infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure in the national interest. We have a draft EO for the Hon. Minister’s adoption.
- Withdraw the framework and Guidelines for Public Internet Access (PIA) 2019 in the overall interest of the ICT industry.
- Direct NITDA to collaborate with NCC to issue additional guidelines on securing consent for the telecommunications industry and given the volume of subscribers in the telecommunications industry and the highlighted challenge with procuring consent, the request for a compliance transition period of one year before full enforcement.
- Engage the Minister of Finance towards a review of the Amended Taxes and Levies Order 2015, which is not business friendly and negates the Federal Government’s Ease of Doing Business agenda.
- Cause NITDA to exempt licensed telecommunications operators from the registration requirement for Data Centres.
- Permit the introduction of data price floor to ensure that Telcos price data profitably irrespective of activities carried out by data customers, recommending that OTT players be allowed to enter into agreement with Telcos for revenue share or payment of a kind of interconnect fee to Telcos.
The telcos made the requests while extending a hand of partnership to the Minister, restating its commitment to work with government at all levels to bridge the digital divide in Nigeria and to foster inclusive economic growth.
ALTON cited the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act 2015 which empowers the President on the advice of the National Security Adviser to designate certain networks (physical & virtual) as Critical National Information Infrastructure to protect and preserve same as the basis for its call the declaration of telecom infrastructure as critical national infrastructure.
Telecommunications infrastructure is globally acknowledged as an enabler for economic and social growth in the digital economy. The impact of telecommunications in enabling new industries and introducing significant efficiencies in education delivery, financial services delivery, health care provision, energy management, agriculture and ensuring public safety cannot be overemphasized.
Given the role of telecommunications as a social capital overhead, damage to telecoms infrastructure or interference with same would have devastating impact on the economy and security or public safety.
ALTON also said the framework permits NITDA to license a Public Internet Access Provider (PIAP) which technically is a provider of data services and prescribes minimum quality of service for such providers will bring about multiple regulation as two regulators (NCC/NITDA) will be overseeing the data market.
It argues that allowing PIAP to offer free data services is in conflict with the pricing principles for data services in the communications market as developed by the NCC and could potentially lessen competition in the data market, saying that the minister should instead direct NCC to develop a framework for Public Internet Access which would promote the use of data services in public places.
ALTON argues that the letter to its members NITDA in July 2019 requesting for the registration of Data Centre facilities will result in multiple regulation of the industry as the data centers owned by our members are part of telecommunications networks that are already being regulated by the NCC.
While admitting that the Nigerian Data Protection Regulations is an innovative piece of subsidiary legislation which has placed Nigeria on the global map of nations with national data privacy and data protection legislations, ALTON said complying with the provision which deals with obtaining consent from customers prior to the use of their data for operations is an area of challenge for the industry.
ALTON argues that majority of its customers are pre-paid and communication with most of the customers is via text messages as such securing consent in the manner described in the Regulations (i.e. intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language) will prove difficult for the industry and highly probable that some customers may not respond to the request for consent.
According to Ovum, the independent analyst and consultancy, the growing adoption of OTT services by customers instead of traditional telecoms services will occasion global revenue loss of $386bn over a period of six years (2012 – 2018) for the traditional telecom operators, thus endangering network development.
The operation of OTT services in Nigeria has shown that voice minutes have been declining due to impact of OTT while VoIP has been increasing, OTT Data flux has been increasing as shown with the 2016 data, Telcos are losing money due to this trend, while requesting urgent action to save Telcos further loss due to activities of OTT players who do not invest in infrastructure.
OTT Operators, ALTON noted offer the same services as the operators (voice, SMS, content, etc.), but are neither subject to licensing under the NCA nor have any contractual obligation with telecommunication operators in terms of interconnection.
“There is no doubt that the world is experiencing rapid technology revolution. Digital technologies are reshaping traditional human activities and disrupting business models and broadband networks are being used to transform the way people communicate, socialize, shop, travel and work, and are creating entirely new business models and markets. The reality of the world being a global village is now more evident.
“The leading global businesses such as Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Alibaba are all enabled by broadband networks. This speaks to the power of technologies in global economies. Thus, any country that overlooks the ongoing digital revolution and fails to act strategically to exploit the benefits of the digital ecosystem will lose in the long run.
“For Nigeria, we are well-positioned to benefit from the digital revolution given our human capital potential which is our greatest asset and our burgeoning high youth population. However, what is missing is a holistic strategy that would enable Nigeria to exploit the benefits of the global digital ecosystem.
“It is, therefore, our view that Nigeria needs a holistic digital strategy that would deliver economic prosperity to its citizenry. We advocate that the strategy should address critical issues such as Broadband Infrastructural development, Digital services, finance, capacity building, and the regulatory environment” ALTON stated.
It said the strong presence of Mobile Networks in the country has attracted over USD38bn FDI in the past 16 years, acting as catalyst for telecoms infrastructural development in the country, and also a major employer of labour having created over 30,000 direct job opportunities and over 500,000 indirect job opportunities, while paying over NGN300bn to the coffers of the Government in taxes and levies annually.
