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Stories by Olabisi Olaleye [email protected] 08094000013, 08111813040
The year 2016 has been an eventful year in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry, the key driver of Nigeria’s economy.
Billionaire co-founder of popular social media platform, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, visited Nigeria for the first time to support tech development and entrepreneurship across Africa. He met with developers and entrepreneurs, and also learnt about the startup ecosystem in Nigeria.
According to Zuckerberg, the visit would help to further revolutionise Facebook.
Nigeria was ranked number one in Africa and eighth in the world in terms of internet usage via the 63 million internet users in the country. This fact was diclosed by digitalfacts, Nigeria, West and Central Africa, a second edition publication by digitXplus. According to the journal, 15 countries have the highest number of Internet users in the world: China (632 million); USA (269m); India (198m); Japan (110m); Brazil (105m); Russia (87m); Indonesia (83m); and Germany (68m). Others are Nigeria (63m); UK (57m); France (54m); Mexico (52m); Iran (49m); Egypt (43m) and South Korea (42m).
The publication revealed that, since 2011, Nigeria has maintained a steady upward trend in the number of Internet users; from 35.7 million, the figure increased to 42.8 million, 51.8m, 57.7m and 63.2m Pnternet users in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively.
On the issue of digital expansion, MultiChoice Africa signed a nine-year contract for the expansion of its DStv platform on Eutelsat satellite (36 degree East video neighbourhood) at the International Broadcasting Corporation in Amsterdam.
This would further anchor 36 degree East as a premier location for digital video entertainment services in Africa, ready for the future with new Eutelsat satellite capacity lease.
Quality of service, to a large extent, was stable in 2016, and according to the Executive Vice Chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, his administration has been focused on an eight point agenda, which when fully realised in the next five years would “bring tremendous improvement to the three A’s of our desirable policy outcomes, namely Accessibility, Affordability and Availability.”
The NCC adopted tennis as a sport as part of its CSR activities and recreationm because its “philosophy believes in maintenance of work-life balance.”
“The NCC has a long and robust relationship with Ikoyi Club 1938, Tennis Section; and our sponsorship of a national tennis tournement christened NCC League,” a statement from the commission said.
With ICT being the driver of the economy, other agencies of government, parastatals and the Customs, including the Tin-Can Island port, have not only updated their database digitally, a standard ICT room, fully equipped was put in place for officers and men to update their ICT knowlege, which to a large extent would further boost the economy.
Danbatta also announced that, based on available evidence of activities in the industry, Nigeria can meet the 30 per cent broadband penetration target. This optimism is corroborated by the latest report of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission For Sustainable Development, which credited Nigeria with 20.95 per cent broadband penetration by August, 2016.
“We are almost there but we will strive to do more and surpass the target,” Danbatta said.
Every operator in the country upped its game by rolling out 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) platforms. NCC also reviewed the code of corporate governance.
In 2012, the commission set up a multi-stakeholder corporate governance working group and the mandate was to determine the industry’s corporate governance needs and the best approach to address it.
The NCC boss said, “In 2014, the CGWG developed the code of corporate governance for the telecoms industry. The code consists of 12 principles and was developed to protect the interest of investors and stakeholders in the industry, as well as promote time-valued principles of accountability, responsibility, transparency, integrity and ethical conduct.”
The issues of unsolicited text messages and calls were addressed through the presentation of a “Direction” to operators to provide the opt-in and opt-out 2442 (DND) platform on their networks to enable subscribers manage their lines.
Although the commission acknowledged areas of challenge in the industry, including infrastructure, security, multiple regulation and taxation, the NCC said it was always engaging all stakeholders.
MTN Nigeria was given reprieve after it disbursed the first payment of N30 billion to the coffers of government as part of the settlement for the fine slammed on it by the commission.
NCC also declared MTN winner of the 2.6 GHz band auction, a 10-year frequency spectrum licence.
Meanwhile, the dominant operator acquired the last CDMA operator, Visafone, early in the year for its specctrum but NCC said it granted only 100 per cent shareholding of Visafone Communications not licenced to MTN Nigeria.
And that a decision to transfer Visafone licence to MTN has not yet been taken. What has been approved in the transaction is shareholding and was taken by virtue of section 38 of the Nigerian Communications Act (NCA) 2003.
According to the NCC, section 38 of the Act states that the grant of a licence shall be personal to the licencee and the licence shall not be operated by, assigned, sub-licenced or transferred to any other party unless the prior written approval of the commission has been granted.
There was mass sack in the industry as several people were disengaged due to recession and acquisition. Ericsson, for instance, laid off 160 workers, while MTN disengaged over 2,000 casual staffers, among others.
Also, Mr. Ibrahim Pantami was appointed new Director-General of National Information Technology Development Agency (Nitda).Nitda was created in April 2001 to implement Nigeria’s IT policy and co-ordinate general IT development in the country.
The incident that caused outrage among subscribers was the proposed data tariff hike but the Presidency immediately intervened and proposal was put on hold.
The NCC said it was guided in its regulatory activities by its core philosophy of being a firm, fair and forthright regulator, balancing the interest of its core stakeholder segments of operators, consumers and government.
“All decisions are predicated on the fair balance of these contending interests with the overarching objective of attaining sustainability of telecommunication as a sector and a key one for that matter. The recent issue pertaining to the interim floor data plan tariff was an unfortunate miscommunication, which the commission has since stepped forward to correct.”
On the international stage, Zuckerberg disclosed that he had built an artificial intelligence robo for efficiency and comfort.
He said, “The reason is to co-ordinate normal lifestyle. My goal was to learn about the state of artificial intelligence and Facebook engineers get to use, as well as a thorough overview of home automation. So far this year, I have built a simple AI that I can talk to on my phone and computer, that can con- trol my home, including lights, temperature, appliances, music and security, that learns my tastes and patterns, that can learn new words and concepts, and that can even entertain Max, my child. It uses several artificial intelligence techniques, including natural language processing, speech recognition, face recognition, and reinforcement learning”.
Telco offers 200 minutes free to other networks
Customers on the Smile network are in for a thrill this yuletide as the pioneer 4G LTE telecommunications service provider in West Africa has announced the commencement of its ‘SuperTalk’ promo, which offers customers on the Smile network up to 200 minutes free calls to all networks in Nigeria.
Applauded by industry watchers as a worthwhile yuletide bonanza, customers on the network could recharge and enjoy incremental voice minutes based on their preferred data plan. A customer who purchases a 1GB data plan would get 10-minute free calls with a validity period of 15 days. The purchase of 2GB data plan offers 20-minute free calls also within 15 days validity period. Purchase of 3GB data plan offers 30-minute free calls with 30 days’ validity period. The 5GB and 7GB data plans offer 60 minutes of free calls with 30 days validity, while the UnlimitedLite, 10GB, 15GB and 20GB, offers the customer 120 minutes of free calls in 30 days. The UnlimitedPremium, 50GB, 100GB and 200GB, offers 200 minutes of free calls time with 30 days validity period.
A statement by the company indicated that the promo was one of the many ways the company has decided to reward customers for their loyalty. The statement enjoined customers of Smile as well as prospects to take advantage of the offer to maximise their call time to families and friends, especially in this yuletide period. It stressed that customers stand to benefit from SuperTalk only to the extent of the renewal of their preferred data plan. On what informed this customer-centric initiative, the statement avowed that the offer remains a veritable tool to achieving the objective of providing Smile customers affordable, high-end communication service.
