PPP central to driving rural telephony, say telcos

Ben Uzor Jr

Operators in Nigeria’s telecommunications market have pointed out the need to adopt a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model in order to deepen rural telephony services in the country. According to the operators, there is need to harness the growth potentials in rural communities which could be catalysed by telecoms services. Osondu Nwokoro, head of regulatory affairs for Airtel told Business Day at a telecoms forum recently that there calculating addressable markets have failed to capture.

“PPP is central to getting rural telephony to work. Collaboration however must cut across domestic and international partners. One of the problems we are having with rural telephony is that operator buy-in is lacking in the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). There are no set targets and time- lines in terms of implementation. “There should be a list clearly stating and delineating those areas in Nigeria that are unserved or underserved, so that requisite funds could be delivered to them for the deployment of telecoms services. Rural telephony must be target and performance driven, “ Nwokoro noted.

Wale Goodluck, corporate service executive, MTN believes that more incentives are required to ensure that rural telephony succeeds. Although, several bottlenecks impeding network rollout in rural communities exist, Goodluck challenged telecoms operators to adopt low-cost models in providing telecoms services in rural communities. According to him, the future remained in rural telephony, adding that there would be greater purchasing power in the rural communities soon. Goodluck also called on government to improve on electric power distribution and to consider subsidy on telecoms infrastructure to ensure better rural telephony penetration.

For Gbenga Adebayo, Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications of Nigeria (ALTON), the huge amount spent on diesel, generating sets and other associated expenses could otherwise be spent on network investment towards the provision of qualitative services to Nigerians. Speaking on power as a major hindrance to rural telephony, Adebayo said “community agitation and militancy across the six geopolitical zones restricts rollout, constraints maintenance and re-fuelling of sites, especially in rural communities, and the challenges seriously affect our ability to deliver the desired grade of service across the federation.”

First published on Business Day Media, 10 April 2012