Exposure to network radio frequencies has no impact on health – Ndukwe

Exposure to network radio frequencies has no impact on health – The coronavirus and the associated lockdown to stem spread of the infection have had an unprecedented effect on businesses and the socio-economic lives of people across the world.

The Chairman, MTN Nigeria, Dr Ernest Ndukwe, speaks on the 5G-coronavirus conspiracy theory and the company’s telecommunications and emergency support services for the government and subscribers during the COVID-19 crisis, among other issues, IFEOLUWA OGUNFUWA reports

At MTN Nigeria, we decided that there are three important things to focus on in this context. The first is the way in which we have had to adapt our operations in order to work effectively in a lockdown.

The second is the way in which new demands on our network are affecting us and how we are responding. The third is the way in which this will affect our customers and our business. In response to the first, we have had to take immediate steps to initiate remote working and business continuity plans to ensure our business continued to run seamlessly and our sites remain fully operational.

On the second area of focus, the telecoms sector as a whole has experienced unprecedented demand for our services, particularly data services since the lockdown began. The more people are obliged to stay at home, the more they want to use voice and data services to stay connected. As stated earlier, we had to quickly transit to remote working and reorganised the way in which we service and maintain our sites.

The wider infrastructure has had to be retooled to meet new levels of network usage. To meet this spike in demand, we are investing to ensure that the capacity needed is consistently available.

MTN has adopted a phased approach to our COVID-19 response and we have already announced the first phase of support, which focuses on our employees, systems, processes and structures to ensure that the services we provide remain available to our customers, despite the lockdown. We recognise that our biggest contribution will be to ensure that everyone remains connected to each other and that government, private sector organisations and media outfits cannot function well without strong and efficient telecommunications services during this period. ICT infrastructure underpins the ability of critical sectors of the economy such as health, financial services, security, transportation, food supply chains and media organisations to function effectively.

A significant part of our commitment is to ensure that our infrastructure can be utilised effectively by health services sector to ensure they can efficiently carry out their duties. We have therefore partnered with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control to provide its workers with access to telephone sets, voice and data services to co-ordinate their response efficiently. The NCDC is at the front line of our response and needs to be given every support to help contain COVID-19.

Our partnership with the NCDC also includes a channel enabling the SMS distribution of health information to all of our subscribers as needed as well as the provision of 100 megabytes of data per day for subscribers seeking information on a number of key websites. We have also provided support to state governments and the Nigerian Governors Forum to ensure they can stay connected during this unusual period. We have therefore provided them some of the data they need to appropriately target responses in their states as well as continue to deliver governance obligations remotely.

What is MTN doing to ease congestion on its network and ensure good quality hitch-free regular and emergency communication services during this period?

We are investing more resources to try and ensure that more capacity is in place, while being circumspect and cautious about the level of traffic we accommodate on the network. Collectively, we are exploring network infrastructure sharing opportunities with other operators (with the active support of the Nigerian Communications Commission). The NCC has also been quite proactive in providing additional backhaul (E-Band) spectrum to support easing congestion issues.