NIGERIA’S active telephone lines have hit 110.3 million, going by the November 2012, latest subscribers statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Specifically, the NCC data, released recently, showed that active subscription moved from 109.4 million in October to 110.4 million in November, meaning that the country only added 848,249 lines to the previous figures.

The increase in Nigeria’s mobile subscription is coming amidst complaints by subscribers of increasing poor telecommunications services.

However, both the Nigerian Communications Commission and telecoms operators, which recently met in Abuja, have assured Nigerians of a major positive turn around in telecommunications service quality in the country in 2013.

Complaints ranging from drop calls, call hanging, undelivered and unsolicited text messages, sudden tariff deductions among others have become the order of the day in Nigeria’s telecoms sector.

This is coming on the heels of several invesments, embarked upon by service provider.

The NCC statistics showed that the country’s teledensity moved slightly from 78.21 per cent in October to 78.82 per cent in November 2012.

Telephone density or teledensity is the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area. It varies widely across the nations and also between urban and rural areas within a country.

Already, analysts have said that telephone density has significant correlation with the per capita GDP of an area. It is also used as an indicator of economic development of the country or specific region.

Indeed, the statistics revealed that the GSM operators, including MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat added about 955,655 subscribers to their networks. They moved from 105.9 million in October to 106.8 million a month after.

As usual, the Code Division Multiple Access operators such as Visafone, Starcomms, Multi-Links and the troubled Zoom Mobile further experienced a fall in their subscriber base from 3.1 million in October to 3.0 million in November.

For the fixed wired and wireless network operators, there was also a decline in their meager active subscriptions from 454,644 lines in October to 432, 899 in November.

The statistics also showed that the country can boast of an installed telecommunications capacity of 211.7 million and a total connected telephone lines of 150.8 million.

Presently, MTN Nigeria leads the pack with over 45 million subscribers, Globacom controls about 28 million, with Airtel having 25 million users of its network.

Etisalat recently announced that it’s active subscriptions have hit 15 million within four years of operations in the country.

Besides, the emerging merger of the three CDMA operators, including Starcomms, Multilinks and MTS is expected to raise the performance bar of the CDMA players and give them an edge with the proposed launch of Long Term Evolution technology for more market share in the country.

Meanwhile in Abuja, at a two-day workshop organised for Information and Communication technology journalists by the NCC, stakeholders believed that while the rights of subscribers to complain about services they pay for but, which they cannot get, cannot be over-emphasised, escalating challenges being faced by the operators in the business environment which have been hindering their ability to deliver continuously improved quality of service, also needed to be addressed by the relevant authorities and stakeholders.

Speaking at the forum, the President of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo noted, “while the nose bleeds, the eyes should still be clear enough to look at the causes of the decline in quality of services,” which is not the design of the operators.

According to Adebayo, despite the brilliant regulation provided by the NCC, challenges in the sector remained enormous, ranging from insecurity of telecoms infrastructures, a phenomenon that manifested prominently in the last year terror attack on telecoms infrastructures in some parts of the country.

It was gathered that no fewer than 30 base stations were bombed in the last year terror attack on telecoms facilities. However, the facilities are yet to be rebuilt because of lack of access. Other environment challenges facing telecoms operators include vandalism and stealing of telecom facilities, especially those located in remote areas.

Buttressing this, the Corporate Services Executive, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Wale Goodluck had disclosed that, like other telecoms firms, MTN records a minimum of 70 cases of vandalism of its infrastructure scattered across the country on a monthly basis.

But when the operators’ facilities are attacked, as witnessed on an increased note recently, industry observers say it puts additional burden on the operators, in terms of extra investment to fix the destruction, during which time cases of congestion may be inevitable.

“Though we complain about the poor quality of service as customers, we are also cognizant of the fact that operators facilities are not properly secured by the government as facilities belong to telecoms networks are still not being given the required legal protection status as it is the case in other countries. This, we think, should be looked into by the government and other relevant stakeholders,” said the President, National Association of Telecoms Subscribers, (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo.

Yet, aside the environment problem, ALTON President said operators still face perennial challenges of multiple taxation, multiple regulations and right-of- way problem.

According Adebayo, more than ever before, every tier of government - state and local councils see telecoms as money spinner and impose all kind of fees and in some cases about N3 million per base station, ostensibly to boost their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

“The imposition process is often fraught with litigations and argumentations which slow down network expansion roll out a service upgrade,” he insisted.

Another monster against improved quality of service is multiple regulations. Apart from the NCC, a number of organisations want to impose their laws on the sector. Adebayo said one of such orgainsations is the National Environmental Standards Regulatory Enforcement Agency (NESREA), whose own laws of environmental impact analysis (EIA) and safety is at variance with that of the regulator and the international community.

“On their own, they decommission base stations. Some councils are also decommissioning base stations for which according to them, the operators don’t have certificate of occupancy. While some hardly respond to request for permit to build base stations,” Adebayo lamented.

Another albatross to quality service delivery, according to Adebayo, emanates from the challenge of the right-of-way. According to him, “this particularly makes it very expensive for operators to deploy fibre optic cables within the cities and rural areas.”

He noted that states and councils impose very hefty charges that are inimical to investment, stressing that despite the availability of undersea cables in Nigeria, right of way particularly makes dropping and deployment across the country for ubiquitous access by all difficult.

After the presentation made at the Federal Executive Council the Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, recently, Nigerian government, set up joint committee of operators and top government officials including governors to address sundry issues such as right of way and multiple taxation, among others.

As such, the minister has made it known that government plans to make telecoms installations Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) just as the pipeline facilities, as well as, the public electricity facilities are protected as CNI.

The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah has said the regulator would be introducing number portability early this year to further stimulate competition and enable mobility for subscribers among networks.

Other areas that the regulator would also focus on in engendering improved quality of service, according to Juwah, include introducing a broadband policy this year and licensing of companies to deliver broadband services. This is expected to reduce pressure on GSM service providers. “NCC will also be strengthening monitoring activities to continuously put operators on their toes.”

Meanwhile, other civil responsibilities highlighted as a roadmap to improving telecoms services as collective efforts include the need for Nigerians to defend telecoms installations and take vandals as enemies of the state and country.

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se na me go read all this?..*yawns and sleeps off*