SIM registration, MNP: What impact on network quality? (2)
As much as the NCC is enthusiastic about MNP, it has since recanted about it being a solution for QoS. Rather, now it says that MNP will deepen competition. In a country where an average phone user owns two to three mobile handsets, why would anyone want to wait for 90 days in order to port into another network when one can easily acquire a new SIM, get it registered and move on? With the proliferation of cheap dual-SIM handheld devices, porting will remain very unattractive.
But operators do not believe that MNP is dead-on-arrival as feared by some analysts. It has stimulated the market. According to Goodluck, the issue of QoS is an industry problem but the reality is that MNP goes beyond QoS problems. Aside from an ability to leave one network for another, customers also look out for other value-added services including value for money, customer relation, pocket-friendly tariff, network reach and other key indicators.
Analysts also believe that instead of improving QoS, MNP has only fuelled the advertising wars and caused telcos to increase their advert budgets, creatively jostling for the retention of old subscribers while canvassing for new or porting subscribers, offering freebies to motivate customers. MTN’s ‘I don port’ advert readily comes to mind in this regard. While some people appreciate the creativity of the TV commercial, others perceive it as the marketing war between Etisalat and MTN being brought to the public space. The ‘I don port’ commercial, for instance, garnered 97,523 views on YouTube within six days of its upload, making it the most viewed MNP commercial ever in Nigeria.
Corporate Services executive of MTN, Akinwale Goodluck, again insists that MNP has only taken market competition to a new level and this, he says, is good for the industry.
The problem of quality of service apparently runs deeper than most people appreciate. Twelve years down the line and in spite of heavy investments, QoS is still not at par with that of the developed world. One of the biggest inhibitors of QoS is the inability of operators to match supply with demand. This is not because operators are not investing heavily in network rollout and expansion, but because of the numerous administrative and environmental bottlenecks that they face on a daily basis in their bid to expand the capacity of their networks. Multiple regulation, vandalism, theft, occasional shutdown of base stations by local, state and federal environmental protection agencies, multiple taxation, and insecurity, among others, are some of the reasons these investments are not impacting positively on network quality.
According to Goodluck, in May 2013, MTN integrated 250 2G base stations into its network to improve capacity and reduce congestion. One of the biggest challenges being faced by telecom operators on a daily basis is theft and vandalism of their infrastructure. Operators are calling on communities to see the safety and protection of telecom infrastructure as part of their responsibility and contribution to mobile penetration. Operators say they are particularly excited about the support they have enjoyed from the NCC and government, especially from the office of the National Security Adviser who, after several stakeholders’ meeting with them, has agreed to push the Critical National Infrastructure Bill in the House of Assembly. The bill will highlight the need to protect telecommunications infrastructure and lay out penalties for damaging any.
The Critical National Infrastructure Bill, when passed, will hopefully help to put a lid on or at best reduce the incidence of vandalism and theft of very expensive telecoms equipment. Just as the chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, ATCON, Gbenga Adebayo, has said, until all barriers to smooth operation of telecoms services are eliminated and the industry has the necessary protection from government, the issue of quality of service will continue to be like the enfant terrible which you cannot disown yet cannot tame.
Ucheagwu sent this in from Lagos.
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