I just read a topic where people were comparing Internet speed in Nigeria, I live in the US and i can say the services here are better but i have worked for years in Nigeria biggest telecom company and i know the challenges of doing business in Nigeria. That pix shows my internet speed on a 4G network here. Telecom business here is totally different from what we have in Nigeria, in fact doing business here apart from the tax cannot be compared to Nigeria.

In Nigeria I know the challenges these people had to face even to bring you ordinary voice services and most of these challenges are not in any these foreign countries you are using as comparison basis. First you need to understand how these things work before you can come to an objective conclusion.

I would simplify the working system of your mobile network into 3 major components - Your Device, A base station and the Switch Centers. A base station in Nigeria consists of a distinct tower structure, a cabin (with very very expensive mobile equipments), several radio transmitters at the top of the tower, 2 working generator capacities ranges 15kva to 60kv (1 working, 1 standby), Diesel Tank, and the base station is situated on a very expensive leased land. A Switch Center has offices for operations and monitoring, a very large Switch room with equipments worth Billions of Dollars, and an average of 3 working 2000kva generators. The list 15kva generator consumes approx 2000 liters of diesel in a month (within recommended load), so kindly do the rest for a 60kva and 2000kva. This is just power alone! An average of 20 generators are stolen monthly in base stations in Lagos alone, other miscellaneous thefts are worth an average of N415,000.00 monthly.

To cover Lagos alone a major carrier would have over 1900 base stations and approx 3 - 4 major switch centers. With all these details do the arithmetic. The cost of maintaining availability in 1 base station in a month cannot be adequately quantified in monetary value, and majorly it is caused by lack of govt infrastructures, (those of you that have relatives as telecom engineers would testify) so you can imagine what it would cost to maintain a Switch Center in Nigeria. The problems are more than lack of Govt infrastructures, it also involves us; the citizens. We believe these companies makes billions in dollars so any opportunity we have to interact with them physically we hit hard and sabotage! These companies want to give you these services but it has been economical and physically impossible due to peculiarities of our countries. No company can survive in these harsh conditions, contrary to your believes that they are making Billions their OPEX is catching up with them, they are dying slowly.Trust me I am giving you inside information, for those that are familiar with the Teleco market - How many Fixed wireless companies still exist today or are we not aware of how many started the race? the few remaining are struggling and would be dead soon !!! Major Telcos in Nigeria are seriously downsizing now and outsourcing, one day you would wake up and realize they have closed shop, i know all these because i have been part of the engine room. If the Telcos are facing these i wonder what the Oil companies are going through, these companies are not omnipotent! How many of your Multinationals still exist? So before you pass judgment know the facts !

As valid as your points are I do have a few observations.

Firstly, You are most probably not what or who you say you are. Why, you ask? When you said you posted a picture of your internet speed below and I got to see the picture. I was shocked. It is equivalent to a doctor announcing that he/she wants to show us a stethoscope and he pulls out a thermometer. How can you show us a picture of your wireless adapter and tell me that is your internet speed? It means that your claim of working in a telco is bogus cos you don't even know the rudimentary knowledge of networks. What exactly were you planning on illustrating with the picture? Is it the 54mbps or something else? There's a thread here where people compare their own internet speeds, none of them has posted a picture as silly as yours. Maybe because none of them works in a telco. What you showed us in your picture is merely the network adapter's connection speed. You can also call it the transmission or link speed. It is the maximum speed obtainable on that adapter and it is the same for all wireless adapters regardless of location and manufacturer. Your internet speed is similar if not the same with bandwidth. It varies due to many factors. But from my own point of view, the major factor influencing the slow speeds here is that network capacity is overloaded. They have much more subscribers than their current infrastructure can support and still give optimum speeds obtainable in a 3G network. I still feel your points about cost holds but not as much as you think. Here's a little maths for you. Assuming, MTN has 10 million active subscribers and they make at least a minute call each day at 10 naira. That translates to 100 million naira per day. multiply that by 365 and you get 36.5 billion naira per year on calls alone. Now factor in texts, data and other value added services and the number jumps even further plus the fact that MTN has been in this country for over 10 years. So, you can see, inasmuch as they are spending to support and maintain their network, the still declare massive profits. Take MTN, they own 0803, 0806, 0703, 0706, 0813, 0816, 0814 and 0810. Do the maths and tell me if that is a struggling country. As a side note, a friend of mine that works as a telco engineer told me once that even though MTN is owned by South Africa, MTN Nigeria calls the shots at their board meetings because MTN Nigeria makes much more than what other MTN markets make combined together.

this is interesting and educative as it gave better insight to what is actually on ground. Nigeria will surely get their sometime