Charity Nnaji:
Broadband companies- Tier
II telecoms operators have urged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)
to intervene in their business to save the industry from imminent collapse.
The operators made this
known when they visited Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of
the NCC, in Abuja recently.
The operators therefore
asked the NCC, to take immediate and decisive steps to avert the looming threat
of strangulation, which its members currently face.
Those in the delegation
were, Mr. Godfrey Efeurhobo, managing director, Smile Communications; David
Venn, managing director, Spectranet; Mr. Osondu Nwokoro, director
Regulatory and External Affairs of nTel; and Mr. Chuma Okoye, chief
commercial officer, Swift Networks,
According to them, the
industry is in a situation where all operators are finding it difficult to
justify the required investment case for additional capital expenditure (capex)
for network capacity expansion to improve quality of service to customers.
They further noted that
the network operating expenditure (opex) of operations have skyrocketed in the
last 15 months by over 85 per cent with revenues remaining relatively
flat. Most operators, they lamented, are currently struggling with
meeting obligations to their suppliers particularly network vendors, tower
firms and servicing loan obligations.
According to CommunicationsWeek, the CEOs stated that
the NCC’s declaration of 2017 as the Year of the Telecoms Consumer can be
derailed by failure of operators to deliver on the expected quality of service
particularly on data throughput and experience due to the weak investment case
to support additional capex as a result of deteriorating market conditions.
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