Nigeria obtains frequency spectrum allocation from ITU

Ben Uzor Jr

After years of intensely lobbying the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Nigeria and indeed Africa has finally secured additional spectrum allocation at the just concluded World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 (WRC-12), Business Day can reliably inform. The African Team, led by Bashir Gwandu, executive commissioner, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) dedicated to pursuing the Allocation of Spectrum to IMT on the 700MHz band has vigorously pursued the Allocation of the 694-790MHz at the ITU in order to turn Africa’s broadband potential into reality.

The African delegates, according to analysts who spoke with Business Day yesterday, have every reason to celebrate the conclusions of the WRC-12 and should indeed be celebrated by the African Telecom Industry for coming home with something that was up till now akin to a dream. This development, according to the analysts would enable telecommunication operators in Nigeria and Africa roll out innovative and reasonably priced broadband services, and consequently bridge Africa’s digital divide.

Still on the achievements of the African team particularly Nigerian delegates, they have ensured that the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) services on the 850MHz band (Principally for Visafone, Multilinks, Prestel, Rural Telephony, and Intercellular) that had neither Primary nor Secondary Allocation from the ITU, now have, a formal Primary Allocation Status in the Radio Regulations which should have been done many years ago either before or after the CDMA operators were licensed. This new allocation in the 850MHz band, according to industry watchers can now enable Nigerian operators to demand for non-harmful-interference from services of other countries -a right which hitherto they never had.

Among many other proposals made by Nigerian team was an important International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) related proposal and an accompanying resolution which was adopted by the African Group as common proposal; to consider additional spectrum allocations to the mobile service on a primary basis and identification of additional frequency bands for IMT and related regulatory provisions, to facilitate the development of terrestrial mobile broadband applications. The proposal was also favorably considered and it was accepted to be the Agenda Item 1.1 for the WRC-2015.

Only few weeks ago, the request for the spectrum allocation presented by Gwandu on behalf of African countries was met by stiff opposition mainly from Western and Eastern Europe within Region 1 of the ITU. The African team in partnership with Arab group remained resolute and focused on the target with commitment of ensuring the success of their drive. According to Gwandu, “Africa has come of age to be taken seriously at the WRC, it is simply not an option to go back home empty-handed. “Yes, we can understand that the Allocation Request is not explicitly on the Agenda of the Conference as others would like to see it. But the Agenda Item 1.17 and the Section 89 of the ITU constitution provide sufficient ground to table such a request.

“Most especially considering the poor state of broadband penetration in African Countries”. After several weeks of Adhoc Special Technical Committee work attended by Europe and RCC on the one hand as well as Africa and Arab group on the other, Chaired by Larry Olson of the FCC which culminated into long nights of technical justifications by the proponents, the conference has eventually found solution to accommodate African request while also allowing sometime for technical planning and for other partners in the Region to rise to the occasion by allocating the requested 694-790MHz to mobile services on co-primary basis and identification for IMT, but effective 2015. The later effective date should allow for re-planning/clearance of broadcast TV stations in the band to lower band, as well as, development of common-channeling plan for the whole region which should be followed by common-standard development, chip-set manufacture, and mass production of relevant handsets and Base stations. This technical work is in line with the strive to achieve intra- and inter-regional harmonization for the use of band 694-790/790-862 MHz in order to ensure both broadcasting and mobile services operate in a non‑interference environment.

Through delicate negotiations, CEPT and RCC agreed to support African request. However, despite Inter-regional agreement to support the allocation, a reservation statement was entered by a group of European countries comprising; the Federal Republic of Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Latvia, the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Republic of Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and the Confederation of Switzerland, who stated that they have accepted the compromise on the use of the band 694-790 MHz with great reluctance and on an exceptional basis. They further stated that they have given weight to the fact that the compromise was made in the spirit of International Cooperation and only to satisfy the urgent Broadband demand of those countries which made the proposals. This reservation of some European countries clearly underlines the difficulty that African delegates have faced in the bid to promote Information Communication Technology (ICT) growth and driving home the consequent opportunities ICT sector presents, so as, to address economic challenges in the continent.

On the satellite issues, concerns were raised by African delegates on the possible misuse of Radio Regulations provisions that could result in a single spacecraft being used to bring into use frequency assignments for multiple satellite networks at multiple orbital locations within a short period of time (i.e. satellite hoping to protected filings for the so-called satellites on paper or paper-satellite), and thus, deprive other countries, especially newcomers from Africa, the chance to secure the un-occupied satellite orbital slot. The WRC-12 decided to provide further guidance through a text that was drafted by a team –including Gwandu stating that; a frequency assignment to a space station in the geostationary-satellite orbit shall be considered as having been brought into use when a space station in the geostationary-satellite orbit, with the capability of transmitting or receiving that frequency assignment, has been deployed and maintained at the notified orbital position for a continuous period of ninety days. If after launch, the satellite failed before attaining 90 days, then the 3 year suspension rule automatically applies.

Any frequency assignment (orbital slot) not brought into use within 7 years of filing at ITU-R shall be cancelled by Radio Regulation Board of the ITU. Wherever a satellite is moved from a satellite slot or de-orbited, within 6 months, the notifying administration shall, inform ITU-R of the date on which such use was suspended. For a satellite that failed, the date on which the recorded assignment is brought back into use (with a replacement satellite) shall be not later than three years from the date of suspension. In addition, whenever an administration brings into use frequency assignments at a given orbital location using an already in-orbit satellite, the ITU-R should request for information indicating all other previous orbital locations/frequency assignments brought into use with the same satellite.

First published on Business Day, 20 February, 2012.

Positioning Nigeria’s software industry for global competitiveness

The software arena has become an essential strategic resource for intellectual capital, investment opportunities and value creation in any given economy. With Nigeria pointlessly spending over N25 billion in the past decade on importation of foreign software solutions, repositioning the nation’s software industry is key, writes Ben Uzor

Undoubtedly, the global economy has moved from agricultural, industrial to post-industrialism where information asset is currently perceived as a key driver for economic development, competitiveness and business improvement. Interestingly, the range of ICT-related concerns facing policy makers has increased dramatically in recent years: communications infrastructure, procurement for government automation and electronic government (e-government) programs, intellectual property, government-sponsored research programs, incubators and technology parks, engineering education, foreign investment and, of course, the potential for export revenue.

However, it is usually in this last area that the potential for dramatic economic growth like India or Ireland, which initially brought software to the forefront as a separate issue within ICT. To this end, the software arena has indisputably become an essential strategic resource for intellectual capital, investment opportunities and value creation in any given economy. Software is a relatively low-investment, environmentally friendly, high-growth global industry – a good target growth industry for many countries. But it has also become the most critical and expensive element of the government and business systems that every nation must build for itself.

Currently, the software industry in the United States of America (USA) is considered the third largest business after automobile and electronics. Moreover, software exports has major share in India’s total exports. Available statistics from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reveal that as 2004/2005, both software and services revenue grew by 32 percent to $22 billion and $28.5 billion in 2005/2006. As Stanford Professor, Edward Feigenbaum put it while serving as chief scientist for the United States Air Force; “we now live in a “software-first world.” The growth of the global demand that makes software exports a growth industry is driven by the continued consumption of software by other countries and business enterprises.

Every software-exporting country has evolved a unique industry, shaped by its own resources and situation and by the particular global opportunities presented at the time. For example, Japan exports mostly software games; India exports primarily software services to large software development shops while Ireland exports software products (created by MNCs located in-country as well as by a growing number of indigenous companies. In addition, Israel mostly exports software technology which is subsequently productized by firms in the US and Europe. There is no gain saying that the global software industry has continued to evolve, as countries now look to develop their software exports face a different global situation. Furthermore, they are likely to evolve fundamentally different software industries. In the light of this, current shape and dynamics of the software industry should therefore inform ICT planning and policy, no matter the country’s stage of economic development.

Nigeria’s software market

The country’s software market is dominated by imported packages. While this do not mean that Nigerian firms are simply retail outlets for those packages, the imported packages form the base for further software services to be offered by these firms. In part, this servicing derives from contextual differences: the fact that software packages developed in and for industrialised country markets are not exactly applicable in developing countries without some adjustment. While other nations continue to earn significant revenue from software exports, Nigeria is still groping in the dark, making pointless expenditure of over N25 billion in the past decade on importation of foreign software solutions.

This figure however represent only companies that registered their technology transfer agreements with the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP). Stakeholders in the Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry revealed that Nigeria’s dormant software industry could spring up to become the much anticipated alternative to crude oil with respect to wealth creation and revenue generation, if only the Federal Government can increase its level of participation by way of formulating effective policies, creating the enabling environment and providing appropriate infrastructures to aid software development.

They further blame the industry’s snail speed development majorly on government’s refusal to increase tariffs on imported software to discourage imports. According to them, the Federal Government should increase investment in the area of establishing more national IT parks and clusters with appropriate policies on infrastructure, human resources, incentives and business plan. Chris Uwaje, president, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) projected that the country’s software technology, if well retooled and strategically positioned for global competitiveness could earn about $10 billion annually from foreign software exchange.

He further challenged the present administration to become proactive and create the needed enabling environment for local capacity. The key benefit of a vibrant software, he added was in producing more knowledgeable and better skilled human capital for nation building. “Software has become and will remain one of the fastest growing industries with power to enrich, and sustain national economies. With youth population of about 43.2 percent, Nigeria possesses an immense advantage and capacity to encourage the emerging knowledge information society and succeed best practices and quality standards are established as strategic imperatives to match global competitiveness,” Uwaje posited.

In the same vein, Jimson Olufuye, past president, Information Technology Association of Nigeria (ITAN) called for the need to lay emphasis on training to produce an army of highly skilled Information Technology (IT) professional in terms of tertiary and non-tertiary and non-tertiary IT training at various levels. According to Olufuye, “Software is a product of profound human capacity. We need to develop our human capacity and channel their mind set on software design and architecture on various technology platform. “As regards policy formulation, the IT policy has given priority to software development but it seems that the political will is absent to pull it through.

“In addition, we need to establish more IT parks with appropriate policies on infrastructure, human resources, incentives and business plan.” Moreover, issues such as the absence of software quality assurance, poor investment in software development, poor product standard, scalability, lack of proper documentation which creates a gap in business continuity because the knowledge resides in one person, have all dogged the growth and development of Nigeria’s software industry. To this end, Nigerian firms spend huge foreign exchange on importation, repatriation of royalties and all manner of fees to foreign companies that most local players represent in the country even where the local firms have developed expertise to earn and keep their earnings in the country.

Indigenous software developers

With regards to the state of the industry, indigenous software entrepreneurs opine that the industry is characterized by fragmented players with little or no governing structure. According to them, there are a lot of skilled programmers with minimal or no business acumen. But more importantly, the regulatory framework remains weak and offers minimal support and protection for intellectual property rights and privileges. They however observed that the nation’s educational system and curriculum continues to be a problem, not focusing on the right learning and skills. Commenting on the present state of country’s software industry, Wahab Sarumi, chief executive officer, Wadof Software Consulting urged the government to come up with policies that would ensure that locally-developed software are being used by organisations in Nigeria.

He added: “Indigenous software developers are an endangered species, abandoned by the government, neglected by its own people and bullied by the poachers from India, to whom Nigerian businesses rush to buy software applications to solve local business problems.” Giving a different view of the problems of Nigeria’s software industry, James Agada, managing director, ExpertEdge Limited noted that the problem with the country’s software industry was not a question of foreign software over local software solutions. The MD said “If you have better software, people will buy and they do not care where it is coming from. If you want to sell software, the buyer does not buy the software alone, he buys the software, buys capacity to support the software, buys your capacity to improve on the software, he buys what he assumes is your mastery of the domain the software is meant for because the software must be able to compete favourably with its competitors.”

Ray of hope

A joint committee of the private and public sector are currently working to develop a fit for purpose framework for the establishment of incubation centres across the country that will foster the development of software industry, Omobola Johnson, minister of communications technology has disclosed. This framework, according to the minister “will include minimum IT infrastructure requirements, the creation of a technology innovation venture capital fund, avenues for the commissioning of bespoke software by the business community, institutional support for incubates in the form of business services and a strong mentoring framework by successful business entrepreneurs and a transparent and credible process to select incubates. We are committed to the establishment of four IT Incubation centres by the end of the third quarter of this year.”

Interestingly, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) one of our implementing agencies recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Cross Rivers state government to leverage the infrastructure of Tinapa Business and Leisure resort in Calabar to build a knowledge city/IT park. It is expected that one of our incubation centres will be located in Tinapa.

Software incubation centre

Indigenous software developers in Nigeria’s burgeoning Information Communication Technology (ICT) landscape will soon be able to tap into the multi-million dollar global applications development market as progressive steps are already underway. The federal government disclosed plans to establish four software incubation centres in the country by the end of the third quarter of 2012. Johnson made this disclosure in Lagos recently while declaring open a Youth Empowerment and ICT Foundation programme sponsored by Jim Ovia Foundation. Johnson disclosed that the federal government is to invest about N1 billion to establish an ICT Incubation Centre.
“About N750 million to N1 billion will be needed to establish the incubation centre. This plan will ensure that private sectors invest their money in this IT innovation fund, in order to fund our local software entrepreneurs. We are investing in them because this local entrepreneur may not have collaterals to pay up their loans,” she said. The foundation in partnership with technology giants, Google, Microsoft, IBM, QT recently trained 350 African youths in the area of software development.

Commenting on the rationale behind setting up the ICT foundation and training programme, Jim Ovia, chairman of the foundation said if Nigerian youths are fully equipped with the appropriate training and capacity building, they will not only create software applications to be reckoned with globally but also establish IT business that can thrive and make a significant difference in terms of wealth creation and revenue generation.

The theme of the conference was ‘Developing Nigeria’s Next Generation of ICT Entrepreneurs” and would hold for five days. “Look, Google has a market capitalisation of N200 billion. “Nigeria’s foreign reserves is only N30 billion. Apple at one time made a profit of $1 billion in a week. Technology brands like Microsoft, Google, and IBM are more recognizable than the national flags of some countries that have been in existence for centuries. “This is why we need to empower our youths in the area of ICT. These firms were founded by young men in their twenties at the time. This is why we targeting our youths. There is need for us to inspire, train and engage our youths in the area of technology. We can replicate these success stories”, he added.

Johnson further noted that the training programme was in line with the ministry objective of developing relevant and up-to-date software development skills – including solution architecting and testing. These software incubation centres, according to the ICT minister will go a long way in accelerating the development of a commercial software industry by ensuring that appropriate support and funding is available to software and other IT entrepreneurs. Alluding to the establishment of a professionally managed IT innovation venture capital fund that will have the initial seed capital provided by government with contributions from private sector, Johnson also disclosed that a joint committee of the private and public sector has been instituted to swiftly develop a fit for purpose framework for the establishment of incubation centres across the country.

The launch of this fund, according to her will coincide with the rollout of incubation centres in the 3 – 4 initial pilots across the country. “This framework will include minimum IT infrastructure requirements, the creation of a technology innovation venture capital fund, avenues for the commissioning of bespoke software by the business community, institutional support for incubates in the form of business services and a strong mentoring framework by successful business entrepreneurs and a transparent and credible process to select incubates,” she opined.

The minister maintained that the move will foster the development of software industry, bearing in mind that Nigeria has lost about N18.9bn in the last five years as capital flight from importation of foreign software, according to the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP). According to her, the draft ICT policy makes a strong case for software development.

Way forward

With regards to industry collaboration and the role of government in the development of the industry, software developers had complained that government had at no time been supportive enough either through technology biased policies like tax-breaks, tariffs/levies concession, or providing the enabling infrastructure and environment for innovation to blossom. Software practitioners have also complained about the absence of funding bodies focused essentially on technology. According to them, venture capitalist shy away from funding startups, more so technology ideas that seems complicated. There is need for strong partnership and collaboration between government and the private sector. Business entrepreneurs, state governments, unilateral bodies and even like-minded groups of youths must adopt federal government’s framework and help to establish Information Technology (IT) incubation centres in parts of the country that meet the defined criteria.

Published on BusinessDay Media, Monday 13 February, 2012.

Nigeria moves to expand software industry

Ben Uzor Jr

Indigenous software developers in Nigeria’s burgeoning Information Communication Technology (ICT) landscape will soon be able to tap into the multi-million dollar global applications development market as progressive steps are already underway. The federal government has disclosed plans to establish four software incubation centres in the country by the end of the third quarter of 2012. Omobola Johnson, minister of communications technology made this disclosure in Lagos recently while declaring open a Youth Empowerment and ICT Foundation programme sponsored by Jim Ovia Foundation.

Johnson revealed that the federal government is to invest about N1 billion to establish an ICT Incubation Centre. “About N750 million to N1 billion will be needed to establish the incubation centre. “This plan will ensure that private sectors invest their money in this IT innovation fund, in order to fund our local software entrepreneurs. “We are investing in them because this local entrepreneur may not have collaterals to pay up their loans,” she said. The foundation in partnership with technology giants, Google, Microsoft, IBM, QT last week trained 350 African youths in the area of software development.

Commenting on the rationale behind setting up the ICT foundation and training programme, Jim Ovia, chairman of the foundation said if Nigerian youths are fully equipped with the appropriate training and capacity building, they will not only create software applications to be reckoned with globally but also establish IT business that can thrive and make a significant difference in terms of wealth creation and revenue generation. The theme of the conference was ‘Developing Nigeria’s Next Generation of ICT Entrepreneurs’’ and would hold for five days. “Look, Google has a market capitalisation of N200 billion.

“Nigeria’s foreign reserves is only N30 billion. Apple at one time made a profit of $1 billion in a week. Technology brands like Microsoft, Google, and IBM are more recognizable than the national flags of some countries that have been in existence for centuries. This is why we need to empower our youths in the area of ICT. These firms were founded by young men in their twenties at the time. This is why we targeting our youths. “There is need for us to inspire, train and engage our youths in the area of technology. We can replicate these success stories”, he added.

Johnson further noted that the training programme was in line with the ministry objective of developing relevant and up-to-date software development skills – including solution architecting and testing. These software incubation centres, according to the ICT minister will go along way in accelerating the development of a commercial software industry by ensuring that appropriate support and funding is available to software and other IT entrepreneurs.

Alluding to the establishment of a professionally managed IT innovation venture capital fund that will have the initial seed capital provided by government with contributions from private sector, Johnson also disclosed that a joint committee of the private and public sector has been instituted to swiftly develop a fit for purpose framework for the establishment of incubation centres across the country.

The launch of this fund, according to her will coincide with the rollout of incubation centres in the 3 – 4 initial pilots across the country. “This framework will include minimum IT infrastructure requirements, the creation of a technology innovation venture capital fund, avenues for the commissioning of bespoke software by the business community, institutional support for incubates in the form of business services and a strong mentoring framework by successful business entrepreneurs and a transparent and credible process to select incubates”, she added.
She said the move will foster the development of software industry, bearing in mind that Nigeria has lost about N18.9bn in the last five years as capital flight from importation of foreign software, according to the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP). According to her, the draft ICT policy makes a strong case for software development.

With regards to industry collaboration and the role of government in the development of the industry, according to her, software developers had complained that government had at no time been supportive enough either through technology biased policies like tax-breaks, tariffs/levies concession, or providing the enabling infrastructure and environment for innovation to blossom. Software practitioners have also complained about the absence of funding bodies focused essentially on technology. According to them, venture capitalist shy away from funding start-ups, more so technology ideas that seems complicated.

“We in the Ministry understand these issues well and there is clarity about the role that government can and should play. Let me mention briefly what the Ministry is doing to ensure that we build a software industry. As I mention these initiatives it is important that I state categorically that everything is being done in strong partnership and collaboration with the private sector and industry stakeholders. We hope that business entrepreneurs, state governments, unilateral bodies and even like minded groups of youths will adopt this framework and help to establish Information Technology (IT) incubation centres in parts of the country that meet the defined criteria”, she posited.

Published on Business Day, Tuesday 07 February 2012

NCC moves to revive fixed line sub-sector, to issue new licences in 2013

Ben Uzor Jr

Efforts by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to revive the ailing fixed line segment of Nigeria’s highly competitive telecommunications market are headed in the right direction, industry watchers say. Over 1.9 million fixed lines have become inactive according to 2011 reports. The NCC’s subscriber data shows that there are 2.7 million fixed wired/wireless telephone lines in the country out of which the 1.9 million are not in use. The NCC data also reveals that the total connected fixed wired/wireless lines were 2.7 million as at November 2010 but the number dropped to 2.2 million in October 2011. The regulatory agency says that actualisation of its broadband strategy and the issuance of additional fixed-line telephone licenses next year, will assist in resuscitating the fixed line segment.

In terms of its broadband strategy, the telecoms regulator had decided to explore an open access model for effective deployment of a national fibre network which will ensure an even platform and level playing field for retail service providers. Analysts say that NCC’s broadband strategy will open the doors to the global investment community through the adoption of an open access model, strategically designed to strengthen investment in the area of deploying in-land fibre networks needed to move available bandwidth capacity around the length and breadth of the country.

Though telecoms operators are investing huge financial resources in laying national, metro backbone networks, roll out is slow- paced and controlled in a proprietary nature, unlike an open access infrastructure, where anybody can connect at a uniformly low price. “The licenses will be issued to revive the fixed-line telecommunication services that have been comatose and will benefit our broadband initiative. “Broadband internet is mainly deployed through fixed telephony and it is part of our broadband project to ensure that as we are empowering the private sector, providing incentive to the private sector to create broadband centres in Nigeria, this will go in hand with the restoration of fixed telephony to complement the mobile networks that we have”, Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman, NCC, disclosed this in an interview.

Lanre Ajayi, past president, Nigerian Internet Group (NIG) said in an interview with Business Day, “For me, it is a move in the right direction. The most important role of the telecoms regulator is to engender competition. It is appropriate to encourage more operators in the fixed line segment because more operators will foster competition in the segment and consequently lower the cost of services. More operators in the fixed-line space will also mean faster deployment of requisite infrastructure which will in turn deepen broadband penetration in the country. Finally, it will improve quality of service.”

“I am not aware of this development. But, it is important that we do whatever is necessary to ensure that broadband services get to the nooks and crannies of the country. If the NCC does issue additional licenses in the fixed line segment, it would be one step in promoting universal access. Adewale Jones, vice president, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), posited. These are not the best times for fixed telephony in the country, as over 1.9 million lines have become inactive. The NCC’s subscriber data shows that there are 2.7 million fixed wired/wireless telephone lines in the country out of which the 1.9 million are not in use.

The NCC data also reveals that the total connected fixed wired/wireless lines were 2.7 million as at November 2010 but the number dropped to 2.2 million in October 2011. This, according to the data, means that over 500,000 connected fixed lines had been totally disconnected within 11 months ended October 2011.Similarly, the number of active fixed telephone lines, which stood at 1.1 million in November 2010, had cascaded to 801,297 in October 2011.A brief look at the figures, reveals that 300,000 out of the 1.1 million active fixed telephone lines as at November 2010 went inactive in 2011.

Nigeria, according to analysts, missed a great opportunity due to the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL’s) inability to massively deploy fixed lines when other development-focused nations of the world, such as the United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) did. Whilst it is true that the mobile phone has attained high penetration and usage, for many homes, businesses and companies, according to analysts, there exist, a yawning need for basic fixed line access, with its numerous advantages. By year 2000, NITEL could only put in 400,000 connected telephone lines and 25,000 analogue mobile lines.

The total teledensity stood at a paltry 0.4 lines per 100 inhabitants. By the end of 2011, according to statistics from the NCC, Nigeria has attained over 90 million lines .The NCC is however conscious of the importance of fixed lines infrastructure in broadband deployment. This, according to analysts explains why the Juwah led administration is looking to revive the segment by providing the enabling environment for private investors to expand the country’s broadband infrastructure. Statistics show that fixed-line telephone users make up less than 1 percent of Nigeria’s total subscriber base. Tremendous opportunity exists there, for growth in broadband communication as demand for data services grows.

Jones had predicted that fixed telephone lines might be extinct if they continued to decrease at the current rate. “The disconnection of fixed lines is increasing in the country and if the trend continues, we may end up not having fixed lines again in the next few years. “We need to draw the attention of the Universal Service Provision Fund to this development. We should not abandon fixed lines. It is a warning sign. USPF needs to look at those figures and do something. “This is not the fault of the public per se; it is the government through the USPF that should be pushing for the sustenance of fixed telephony”.

Published on Business Day, tuesday 07 february 2012.

Ministries, agencies to migrate to .ng domain

Ben Uzor Jr

The federal government has disclosed that it is set to ensure complete migration by all its ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) from their existing domain names to Nigeria's Code Top Level domain name, .ng, both for their websites and official emails. This is in an attempt to improve efficiency in governance by bringing all activities of its agencies and parastatals to a single platform. Omobola Johnson, minister of communications technology made disclosure in Lagos recently.

She said the decision was part of the current measures by the government to bring all Information Technology (IT)-based activities of the MDAs to a single platform thereby engendering a connected government that allows for sharing of facilities and information among government's parastatals. According to the minister, the ministry would use the medium to accomplish the dream of achieving true e-government in the country. “Another thing we are looking at is ICT in government.

“I can't stand here and preach to you about the importance of IT development in the industry without telling you about what we are doing in government about using ICT as a means of transparently administering governance and engaging the citizenry,” she said. Johnson further revealed that the ministry was already working assiduously with Galaxy Backbone Limited, an agency under the ministry to ensure a connected government, where information can be shared efficiently and effectively.

“As I speak today, we are putting in place a message and collaboration system to facilitate a connected government. All MDAs will be on .gov.ng. From next year when you get an email from a government official, it will be a .com.ng address. I have already started using mine," she said. According to the ICT minister, e-government is a major area that the ministry was currently focusing on in its effort to make sure that government engages the people in meaningful ventures.

She said Nigeria has a very ambitious e-government programme but hoped that the ministry would launch one of the biggest call centres in Nigeria before the end of 2012, which would basically be used as a basis of engaging government and its citizens. “We had a stakeholders' forum in September, 2011 and we will have another shortly after the new ICT policy that we just posted on our website. We have set ambitious targets for ourselves. Those targets are tangible. We have talked about increasing ICT contribution to Gross Domestic Product. “Today, we have ICT contributing 3.5 per cent although in the last publication of National Bureau of Statistics, it had gone up to 4 per cent.

“What we want to do is achieve at least 2 per cent increase in ICT contribution to GDP by 2015," she added. The target according to her is to boost mobile penetration, covering the whole of this country with voice penetration, even with 90 million subscriber base. Also, the minister said government expected to move from about 58 per cent penetration to 80 per cent mobile penetration. She said although Nigeria currently has about 33 million internet users, some are occasional users.

“By making our broadband infrastructure more ubiquitous and more robust, we believe we can increase the number of internet users to 70 million. It will create an opportunity to provide jobs for our young people very quickly. It will create an opportunity to provide services to both the local industries and offshore industries as well.” She noted that Nigeria was ripe and well positioned to create a domestic call center industry, noting that call centre was one of the initiatives the ministry's was looking at as a means of job creation.

First published on Business Day, Tuesday 24 January, 2012

Cashless Economy - UBA to deploy 25, 000 PoS terminals in Lagos

• Conducts 1 million ATM transaction during strike action
Ben Uzor Jr

As Nigeria gradually moves from cash-based to electronic based transactions by virtue of Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) cash-lite policy, United Bank of Africa (UBA) Plc which currently has 700 branches across the country has disclosed plans to deploy 25, 000 of Point of Sale (PoS) terminals in Lagos by December 2012. Luqman Balogun, group director, E-banking, UBA who made this revelation at a media parley in Lagos recently, said the bank was fully equipped to support CBN’s financial inclusion strategy.

According to Balogun, the recent nationwide strike by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) to protest the removal of fuel subsidy was a lucid indication of the banks preparedness to implement CBN’s cashless drive. “We had a massive surge in the number of people who used our electronic channels during the nationwide strike action. Our ATMs, PoS terminals were up and running during the strike. We had a lot of customers who for the first time used our internet banking platform to conduct financial transactions.

“We recorded 1 million transactions on our ATMs during the strike. UBA currently does 5 million transactions on the ATMs monthly. We were able to keep out ATMs up and running. We even had an alert system in place to notify us when cash runs out at any ATM location. Our ATMs were also supporting cardless withdrawals where money can be sent to anyone. A recipient can walk up to a UBA ATM, access the cardless transaction, supply the access code and the ATM dispenses the cash.

“It was a test for us to see how effective our e-channels were and we came out tops.” Balogun, who allayed fears of increased internet fraud entertained by Nigerians as they migrate to the cashless mode, said that risk and security measures have been greatly improved on to address fraud. He expressed confidence in CBN’s cashless policy, adding it provides ample opportunity for banks to improve the performance of their service delivery infrastructure. More basically, according to him, e-channels would indeed deepen the customer base of banks by essentially taking financial services to the grassroots.

The UBA director noted that the CBN’s cash-lite would drive the usage of payment cards will significantly grow. He believes that cards will largely drive the attainment of the goals of cash-lite given their popularity and wide spread acceptance. “UBA issues 2.2 million Visa Cards out of the total 8.5 million cards in the country. We control 20 percent of the market. We are also planning to commence issuance of MasterCard’s to give our customers more options. All UBA cards are EMV cards with chip and PIN.”

He also pointed out that UBA was playing a dominant role in the internet banking space with U-Direct; a solution providing all account holders to their accounts. According to him, UBA has close to 600,000 subscribers with the adoption rate growing on a daily basis. “U-Direct is a secure web-based solution and gives users the freedom to access their account from anywhere. With U-Direct, customers are able to conduct most transactions available within UBA branches but without having to visit the branch.

“For UBA, we see opportunities because we want to provide solutions. What motivate us from an e-banking perspective are convenience, safety and security. Those are the watch word for us”. The above, the bank intends to achieve as customers and corporates embrace its self-service electronic banking channels namely: UMobile, PayManager, Consolidated Internet Payment Gateway (CIPG), U-Pay Connect, BankCollect. PayManager is UBA’s web-based electronic payment solution.

It is a web-based payment solution that enables e-payment to any third party (suppliers/vendors, customers, government, etc) locally and globally. With PayManager, customers can make payment from their account into accounts with any bank in the world. It also supports foreign currency payments and international transfer. On the other hand, BankCollect is a multi-channel is a web-based solution which enables collection or payment on behalf of government or corporate customers.

Payments such as Airline ticket payments, insurance premiums, subscription payments, utility bills, according to Balogun can all be managed on the solution. CIPG is UBA’s Internet Payment Gateway developed strategically to enable online payments on merchants’ websites. The web solution provides the simplest and quickest method of integrating e-commerce websites to a secure payment gateway for the purpose of receiving payments for goods and services. CIPG presents a combination of local and international payment options to merchant customers on a unified web interface.

First published on Business Day, Tuesday 24 January, 2012

FG lobbies ITU for additional telecoms spectrum

Ben Uzor Jr

The federal government is said to be engaging in intense lobbying for additional spectrum from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to enable telecommunication operators in the country provide innovative and reasonably priced broadband services to Nigerians. Bashir Gwandu, executive commissioner, technical services, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), made this revelation in an interview at the Radiocommunication Assembly conference 2012 held in Geneva.

Telecoms operators had earlier expressed concern that majority of the Nigeria’s population especially those who dwell in the rural communities will be denied access to telecoms services due to spectrum unavailability. 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, Nigeria needs additional spectrum which could be used by mobile operators to deploy high capacity mobile voice and data services, noting that there was not sufficient spectrum available for the regulator which explains why Nigeria was going to ITU to push for more frequency spectrum resource. “In other parts of the world, there is huge ground infrastructure. In Africa, we rely on wireless. We also have affordability issues which entails capacity to pay for deployment of wireline services.

“The alternative we have is to deploy wireless services. For wireless services, one of the fundamental challenges we have is the amount of spectrum needed to provide the service. Frequency spectrum is very limited resources and we have shortage of it. We have to look for cheaper alternative which involves allocating additional spectrum. Unfortunately, we do not have spectrum that is why we have come to the ITU to ask for more allocation of spectrum that would help us bridge the digital divide.

“So, we have put in a paper calling for more studies. We have put in a draft proposal for additional allocation of spectrum; all of these are skewed towards achieving the objective of getting additional spectrum. On the much anticipated global switch over from analogue to digital broadcasting, Gwandu said much is yet to be done in Nigeria.“Some states have already digitized their transmission, others have not. Digitisation should have been done prior to 2010 but every country has its own challenges.

“Some of the challenges we have are issues revolving around getting the right policy in place to ensure that digitisation takes place. It is very important for us to digitise as soon as possible. Presently, it is difficult to get spectrum licenses for telecoms services. Meanwhile, we have spectrum that is currently not efficiently utilised by analogue TV systems. It has become paramount for us to quickly move towards digital services so that we can free up spectrum for IMT and equally more efficient broadcast services.”

Only recently, the NCC commissioner had reiterated the need for the federal government to request for more spectrum allocation on the 700MHz, which is a befitting spectrum being used for analogue TV. “We said let's digitise our television so that we can have the spectra for telephony services and we are pushing for spectra 690-790 MHz. “At the last conference of ITU (World Radio Conference), we said Africans haven't got Digital Dividend because we have already licensed CDMAs, what is left for us is just 790-806MHz which is 16MHz, which is not going to take us anywhere.

“We said let's extend it to 698MHz that would last for three major operators or an existing operator can buy part of the spectrum and expand their network and still accommodate more people and have better quality service and indeed accommodate the data growth that will come overtime. “This is what we are pushing for at ITU, we are leading Africa in this fight for the next WRC next year and we are going to tell ITU that we want it now, we can't wait any more, the whole of Africa wants it as soon as possible.”

First published on Business Day, Tuesday 24 January, 2012.