Poor spectrum management slows down telcos’ rural broadband expansion drive

. . . FG urged to harness Digital Dividend spectrum for rural access
Ben Uzor Jr

There is growing apprehension amongst telecommunications companies that majority of the Nigeria’s population especially those who dwell in the rural communities will be denied access to efficient and affordable broadband services due to federal governments’ inability to efficiently manage our national frequency spectrum resources. Available statistics reveal that 40 million Nigerians living in about 850 villages across the country do not have access to basic telecoms services. An analyst told Business Day yesterday that Nigeria’s digital divide is still wide even with Nigeria’s 90 million active subscribers.

According to him, rural dwellers yearn to be connected to the rest of the world but have no telecoms facilities to do so. Some telecoms companies like Globacom, MTN, and Airtel have complained that their rural broadband expansion plans have been slowed down by the absence of requisite spectrum needed to rollout broadband internet services. Telecoms companies had earlier called on the federal government to as a matter of expediency harness Digital Dividend spectrum for rural access.

This, they further maintained would ensure that rural communities benefit from the GSM revolution. The digital dividend spectrum located between 200 MHz and 1 GHz offers an excellent balance between transmission capacity and distance coverage, thus enabling efficient network deployment. Due to its good signal propagation characteristics fewer infrastructures are required to provide wider mobile coverage, allowing communications services to be provided in rural areas at lower costs.

“In 2011, Globacom is making significant investment in the area of bringing best-in-class broadband services to rural areas. I am sure that other telecoms companies are doing the same because millions of Nigerians, especially those in the rural communities are yet to enjoy the benefits of the GSM revolution. As it relates to broadband deployment, spectrum unavailability is slowing down our rural broadband expansion plans. Federal government must speed up the allocation of new frequency spectrum to mobile services”, a senior executive at Globacom who pleaded anonymity told Business Day yesterday.

Kazeem Oladepo, head of legal services, Main One cable told Business Day in an interview recently that operators must reassess their spectrum strategies and find the appropriate approach to re-leverage existing 3G spectrums to deliver the scale and coverage needed to deliver affordable and efficient internet services to rural communities. As it relates to the problem with spectrum management in Nigeria, he said that a single agency, familiar with the major uses of spectrum, should manage assignment of spectrum rather than having responsibility split between two or more agencies.

“There have also been series of furor generated in the industry over ‘access’ frequencies both from cost and availability perspective. Having some of these resources split between different regulators have not helped matters, while the cost may also be prohibitive for smaller operators. More than anything else, anytime I hear a clamor for more frequency allocation, the next thing that comes to mind is what people have done with the bands allocated to them. Have they made the most efficient use of these resources for to justify further allocation and are they truly utilizing the spectrum.

“Maybe that’s where the regulator shout start and focus its attention, i.e. are there telecoms operators out there who were allocated resources and are not using it for any meaningful purpose, and should this be withdrawn and given to people who are in actual need of the resources and have demonstrated execution capabilities to make ample case for allocation”, Oladepo further added. The Main One executive argued that the current situation in matured markets like the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) is that the media and telecom regulator are converged.

If this model is replicated in Nigeria, according to him, it would enable efficient management of national spectrum resources and also support the delivery of better services to Nigerians. He said that NCC had done considerably well in the area of spectrum management under the Ndukwe administration, noting that much is yet to be seen from the new administration. Wale Goodluck, corporate services executive, MTN, who spoke to BusinessDay in a telephone interview recently believes that optimal management of national frequency resources will boost rollout of innovative broadband services. According to him, spectrum unavailability is hindering telcos from expanding broadband services especially in rural areas.

“We must look at diverse alternatives to drive broadband capacity. We must also look critically at spectrum sharing. “There is a fundamental need to implement a clear spectrum policy that will lead to ubiquitous mobile broadband services. “They must ensure that spectrum is resold thus freeing up a lot of frequency not in use but held by people and institutions without requisite capacity to deploy services”, he noted. Ross Bateson, spokesperson for GSMA agrees with Goodluck, adding that government must also start to contemplate the release of low frequency Digital Dividend Spectrum.

This, he said would be instrumental in ensuring rural Nigeria benefit from high broadband internet connectivity. “The Nigerian government must also learn from recent developments in Brazil, whereby regulator ANATEL re-farmed already allocated, technology neutral, 2.6 GHz spectrum to Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS) operators for pay-per-view television services and had it re-allocated to operators for mobile broadband provision.”