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[telecommunications] An important milestone in connecting the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) was achieved recently with the official inauguration of a fiber optic network linking the six neighbouring countries of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

According to the Phnom Penh Post, the completion of the connection with Laos completes the first phase of an infrastructure project designed to provide a transmission speed of 620 Mbps. Known as the GMS information superhighway, the project is managed by TC and Huawei Technologies from China.

Indochina gears up for next generation services – First phase involving fiber optic network to link six countries completed

Tags: blog, blogs, Communications, Design, information, Network, transmission

[daily trust] Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) is becoming synonymous with controversy as the renewed bid to sell the foremost national carrier for the fourth time is being threatened by infighting and battle of wits amongst stakeholders.

In what seems like a battle for spoils, parties involved are set for a show down.

And should the development be left unchecked, the entire exercise might lead to another round of failure and by extension short changing the Nigerian people.

Following the revocation of the Share Purchase Agreement of the telecoms outfit to Transcorp, the federal government in June set up a technical board consisting of members to oversee the company and to also get a credible core investor for it.

In a statement signed by Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) to the Vice-President, Ima Niboro, the Technical Board under the chairmanship of Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Information and Communication Dr. Abubakar Muhammad, the board will be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the company in the interim, pending the completion of the on-going core investor sale process.

Other members of the board are Director-General, BPE, Dr. Christopher Anyanwu; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance Steve Oronsaye (now, Head of Service); Acting MD, NITEL (to be appointed); Director, Information and Communication, Ibrahim Kashim; SSA (Econs) to VP, Mr. Sam Worlu; representative of the Chairman, National Council on Privatisation (NCP); and Managing Director, NIGCOMSAT Ltd.

At the moment, a substantive Managing Director has not been appointed for NITEL and MTEL. Speculations are rife in the media that one of the board members is currently angling to head the conglomerate whereas the BPE, which is represented by two members i.e. the DG and a director is given to having an in house head for the company. Apart from that, while the BPE wants the company sold in bits, some members of the board are said to be striving to convince the federal government to invest and reactivate it instead of outright sale at the moment.

Daily Trust reported an unnamed source at the weekend, who is believed to be a member of the technical committee of accusing the BPE of being bent on rendering the technical board useless and conniving with interested parties to sell NITEL as scrap without value.

“We have evidence that the BPE does not mean well for NITEL. We are aware of a security report showing that BPE is behind the various crises bedevilling the technical board since it was constituted to manage the affairs of NITEL after the cancellation of its sale to Transcorp. The two BPE members on the Technical Board have stopped attending our meetings and even before then the BPE refused to implement the decision to pay 50% of SAT-3 debt. We asked the BPE to also pay so that it would not be disconnected from London. We recently had to also pay PHCN debt of N350, 000 to prevent them from totally disconnecting NITEL facilities.”

Not done yet, the source said, “The downfall of NITEL started with the intervention of the BPE in the privatisation process. When Obasanjo took over in 1999, NITEL was worth $8 billion. Today, thanks to the BPE which first gave the company to Pentascope and later Transcorp, NITEL value now stand at less than $200 million and they have never deemed it fit to apologise to Nigerians for misadvising government on the competence of these companies they have been off-loading NITEL to. He said since 2004, NITEL had no audited account and management were and BPE never cared because they want to sell NITEL as scrap.”

But the BPE sees this as a waste of money. The BPE’s spokesman told Daily Trust on phone that, “There is disagreement on procedures. Our stand has always been that while privatising, there is no need for refurbishing and rehabilitation because it is wasteful.”

Other members of the technical board are believed to be taking sides with the position canvassed by the proposal of the member, because “they are ministry people and that is where they will get contracts from,” a source said.

These are some of the intrigues of interest currently facing the once flag bearer of Nigeria telecoms industry.

Anichebe had said last week in an interview told Daily Trust that the CVs of top managers at the company were being scrutinised to get a capable hand for the firm.

“I am suspecting they should have the short list ready before council meeting where whoever is recommended will be approved by the council. The next council meeting comes up next (this) week. We are looking at general managers and Deputy General Managers. Within that ranks, we hope to get somebody who will be able to be in charge till we find another investor,” he said. The three deputy managers are Mrs Laraba Abbas, Sabo Ibrahim and Pius Ugandem.

NITEL in 2002 had 553,471 functional lines and a generated income at N53.41 billion as a viable company apart from labour related issues, a debt overhang of over N20 billion, stripped assets and liabilities arising from unpaid workers arrears, and pensioners’ dues, NITEL is no doubt a shadow of its old self.

In 2002 when the first attempt to sell the company to Investors International London Limited (IILL), NITEL had over 10,000 employees. In 2003 before Pentascope took over, NITEL generated and collected N51.43 billion as revenue in one year from about 555,055 connected lines. After 23 months of Pentascope take over, the connected lines dropped to 440,000 and a debt profile of over N40 billion was incurred which eventually led to the revocation of deal with Pentascope. In 2005, Orascom, the Egyptian telecoms giant failed to buy the company because their $250 million bid was said to be below the reserved price.

The takeover of NITEL by Trans-national Corporation (Transcorp) in 2006 was celebrated with fanfare. The $500 million deal promised to turn around the company but three years after, they left it in a sorry state.

When they took over, NITEL’S connected line was 400,000. Three years after, it dropped to less than 100,000. Working lines was 296,000, it has dropped to 5,000. M-tel had about 1.3 million lines when Transcorp took over, but today, the lines stand at less than 100, 000. The 250,000 CDMA lines that were at 90% completion before Transcorp took over have not been completed. There were 249 (out of the original 284) active exchanges in the NITEL network nationwide at the time Transcorp took over. Today less than 60 of them are working, many of them shut down due to power problems.

The Transmission link nationwide through optic fibre network and the Micro-wave (Radio) link have broken down. Today, calls cannot be made in any part of Nigeria (e.g. Abuja to Kaduna) on a land line. Most observers are waiting earnestly to see whom the BPE will hand over NITEL to this time around.

Globacom has not hidden its interest in acquiring NITEL but those opposed to this move think that it could create monopoly in the Nigeria telecom industry.

The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) chaired by Vice President Goodluck Jonathan with up to five ministers as members will definitely have the final say. However, the term of reference among others given to the board upon its appointment was to hold the forth and make NITEL/MTEL as a going concern till a credible investor is found.

How the battle of wits and interest plays out in the nearest future can only be left for time to tell but no doubt the entity to suffer most is NITEL itself and the staff who have suffered untold hardship over the years.

Nitel Privatisation – the Politics, the Crisis

Tags: ash, Audi, blog, blogs, car, Communications, Finance, information, Management, money, Network, publicity, rim, transmission

[business day] After 30 months of work and three rounds of consultations, some toned- down regulations demanding certain standards of customer service from SA’s telecommunications sector have finally been issued.

Under one new rule, operators can be fined up to R500,000 if more than 3% of calls are dropped or cannot be connected. That is unlikely to happen, as the operators say their call failure rate is only 2%.

The rules are outlined in the End- User and Subscriber Service Charter issued by the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) last week. The operators must ensure their networks are available for 95% of the time, and 90% of reported faults must be resolved within three days.

Operators must also submit reports every six months to show how well they are meeting those standards. Councillor Brenda Ntombela said Icasa had budgeted R6m this year to monitor the transmission quality of the networks.

Icasa’s effort to beef up consumer protection began in January 2007 when it formed a committee to set minimum standards for customer service. Regulations were drafted in July 2007 and a workshop was held to get feedback from the industry.

Icasa published its regulations in February last year, but quickly withdrew them to allow another round of comments. Concerns had been raised that the regulations were “extremely onerous and would be difficult, if not impossible, to implement”, it said.

After amended regulations were published in October last year, Icasa received more complaints, and gave the operators and the public another chance to comment when it published the regulations again in January.

On Friday, it announced that the rules were now final. Icasa has also issued draft regulations on the allocation of scarce wireless spectrum that the operators need to carry voice and data communications.

Its most important decision concerns the spectrum needed for WiMax, a technology that can cover large areas and carry high volumes of traffic relatively cheaply. Initially, Icasa insisted that any operator applying for spectrum must be at least 51% black-owned. That sparked an industry outcry, with players saying the companies black enough to meet that profile lacked the skills or the cash to build a network.

Now Icasa has capitulated, and whittled down the black ownership demand to 30%. That still eliminates many experienced players, but does allow more companies to apply or to bid with a black partner.

Icasa has also taken the industry’s advice by offering the spectrum in larger chunks so the winners will have enough to operate effectively.

That will limit WiMax to just four licences. MTN, Vodacom, Altech, Internet Solutions and MWeb have all expressed interest in a licence.

One problem is that state-owned Sentech is sitting on spectrum it does not use. Icasa’s new rules say that if licensed spectrum remains unused, a principle of use it or lose it will apply. It was not clear how feasible it would be to put that rule into practice.

Telecoms Charter Becomes a Reality At Last

Tags: ash, blog, blogs, budget, business, car, Communications, Customer Service, Internet, Network, quality of service, Technology, transmission, wimax, Wireless

[vanguard] Perhaps, crises make Pioneer telecommunications company, Mobitel, stronger. The company since it announced interest for a comeback to active telecommunications operations, with the bidding and subsequent winning and payment of the controversial 2.3Ghz Wimax spectrum license recently, has itself been in and out of controversies.

It began with strong suspicions from government quarters, over how Mobitel, a company that recently applied for a waiver to the allegedly mountainous debts it was owing the federal government, could pay the 2.3Ghz licence money amounting to over One billion Naira, within one week.

Incidentally, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC came into the matter, whisking the Chief Executive of Mobitel, Mr Johnson Salako away, alleging that the waiver it got from NCC was gotten from the wrong quarters.

But last week, the court saw no reason why Salako would be in detention and ordered his immediate release.

Smarting from all that controversy, the company has announced plans to roll out services October this year and Salako has said that he was ready to put away the frustrations and trauma he went through during his eight days incarceration by the Economic and Financial crimes commission, EFCC, just to see that Mobitel rolls out cutting edge services that would bail Nigerians out of the telecommunications woods.

Salako was speaking at a press conference in Victoria Island organised to clarify issues surrounding Mobitel’s involvement in the estranged 2.3 Ghz Wimax licensing round concluded by the Nigerian Communications Commission NCC recently.

He was arrested by the EFCC over waiver granted his company by the NCC on the debt owed by the former management of Mobitel to the federal government.

According to Salako, “our focus now is to get the 2.3 Ghz license which we duly won and move on to providing Nigerians cutting edge services that would change things in the telecommunications life of this country. We do not want to join issues with any body be it the EFCC, NCC or the Ministry of Communications and I am putting my experience in the eight days incarceration behind just to see that Nigerians have the services we promised” he noted.

The detention of Mr Salako by the EFCC came as a result of allegations that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) acted wrongly in granting the former management of Mobitel a waiver over its outstanding fiduciary responsibilities to the Federal Government.

Meanwhile, Mobitel has sued the EFCC and the NCC, praying the court to determine whether it was under a lawful obligation to pay the bill inaccurately assessed in the Sum of N747,945,463 in excess of the N500,000,000 already paid by Mobitel to the government and otherwise declare that it is under no obligation to pay the sum of N298,678,250m included in the NCC’s bill to Mobitel for the Sum of N727,945,463 to the federal government.

In the suit, Mobitel also prayed the court to declare that the waiver and or concession granted it by NCC was in respect of fees that had not accrued.

Among many other wishes of Mobitel was that the court declared that EFCC lacks the powers and competence to recover the said sum of N242, 775,00 as outstanding fees from Mobitel.

However, the company has vowed that while the court case is going on, its primary obligation to the Nigerian masses must be carried out and so, slated October for roll out of ubiquitous services.

The readiness of Mobitel to commence operations in the highly competitive Nigerian market, may after all not be in doubt. Between the time the USMi group acquired the moribund mobitel and now, it has taken bold moves betraying a deliberate plan to challenge the mainstream players in the telecoms market today.

The management of Mobitel revealed that it had awarded contracts worth over $15 million to two companies, VocalTec and Alvarion to provide first phase of cutting edge VoIP platform and 50 base stations in four main Nigerian cities, respectively.

Mobile Week also gathered that the company had signed agreements with infrastructure maintenance/management companies, IHS and Helios Towers to prepare it for collocation . This is in addition to its business romance with Phase3 telecom on national transmission network as well as multi-million dollar contracts with Gateway Communications and also MainOne cable company for 5 year provision of 2.3Gbit fibre optic.

Perhaps its strength could be coming from a consortium of banks led by Skye bank, which was said to have generated additional financing recently, bringing the company’s investment to well over $100 million.

Mobitel Set to Roll Out Services October

Tags: 3g, blog, blogs, business, car, Communications, communications commission, Management, Mobile, money, Network, rim, transmission, wimax

[The Australian] The federal government has brought forward plans to overhaul Australia’s media laws to accommodate its $43 billion plan to give 90 per cent of the population access to high-speed broadband.

Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy last week told technology industry representatives many media regulations would not survive construction of the national broadband network.

He said he was holding meetings to discuss the issues thrown up by both the NBN and the switch from analog to digital free-to-air transmission with stakeholders.

“We’re very conscious that the existing regulatory framework that exists — particularly in the media sector — is going to struggle to survive in a truly digitised world,” Senator Conroy said. “Convergence has happened. The broadband network is going to radically reshape the media sector.

“Some get it a lot, some don’t quite get it yet, some have been in a position of privilege for sometime and had competition kept away from them.

“I’m very conscious of it and we’re working behind the scenes on discussions about this at the moment,” he said.

Senator Conroy said he was particularly concerned that internet television services made possible by the future high-speed broadband connections, known as IPTV, would render the rules governing broadcast audience-reach obsolete.

For instance, if a major network player was to start streaming all of its TV content over the internet, federal laws preventing broadcasters reaching more than 75 per cent of the population would break down, he said. That has already begun to occur, with the Nine Network streaming news bulletins and access to other programs over the internet on Ninemsn, Seven offering news and programs on its Yahoo7 portal, and Network Ten offering a range of entertainment programs to be viewed online.

Cross-media ownership laws would also be up for discussion as more print media operators started taking advantage of IPTV, for example by streaming video news bulletins online.

Professor Michael Fraser, director of the Communications Law Centre at UTS, said the government faced a tough balancing act retaining local media diversity while ensuring media companies stayed large enough to survive as broadband globalised the industry.

“It is totally disruptive because it is such a big pipe it allows you easy access to all the media in the world. But I think, as an Australian audience, you’ll still want … to get Australian media,” Professor Fraser said. “You’ve got to make sure that there is competition among the Australian media on the one hand, by not allowing a monopoly situation. But on the other hand, you’ve got to make sure that they are big enough to survive. So you have to balance diversity against size.”

Professor Fraser rejected arguments that new forms of media arising from the growth of the internet, such as blogs and other forms of social media, could inject sufficient quality journalism to overcome concerns about diminishing diversity.

“Some people would argue that all the blogs and other sources of opinion give you sufficient diversity. I don’t agree with that,” he said. “I don’t think that they are of the same standard, and people will look for those brands as a marker of quality, that there are professional standards and journalistic ethics being applied.

“Obviously you have to read the media sceptically no matter what the source and think about where they’re coming from.

“But I think that major news organisations with major proprietors that have the resources to sustain that kind of professional journalism will flourish, and the blogs don’t offer that.”

National broadband will usher in a reshaped industry

Tags: amp, Audi, AWS, blog, blogs, business, Communications, construction, Free, Internet, journalism, msn, Network, online, Technology, transmission, world