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NCC assures that InfraCos will survive business challenges

By on November 30, 2013

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), on Thursday, assured members of the public that the seven Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) to be given licenses would survive the nation’s business terrain.

Eugene Juwah, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, gave the assurance in Lagos at the Telecoms Executives and Regulators’ Forum organised by the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON).

The NCC had earlier announced the plan to license the infraCos as part of measures to provide infrastructure to drive broadband penetration.

Mr Juwah said the existing telecom operators had survived in spite of alleged challenges in the telecommunication industry.

He said that the service providers had been able to surmount the power challenge in the country by providing their own power generators.

According to him, the problem of obtaining Right of Way is already being addressed by the Minister of Communications Technology.

“All the service providers operate on the same environment, but some perform better than others,” he said. “The kind of Quality of Service (QoS) rendered depends on the business operation model being used by the operator. The InfraCo licensees are also going to compete like others. It would be a defeatist attitude to say that the infracos may not succeed.”

The NCC chief urged operators not to scare investors, but to encourage them toward total development of the nation’s telecommunications industry.

Earlier, Gbenga Adebayo, the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said that the InfraCos might not survive because of the challenges facing service providers in Nigeria.

Mr Adebayo said that the association’s membership strength of 35 had dipped to 12 following the industry’s challenges.

He said that if the operating environment in the telecom industry was not addressed, shortfalls from the operators would continue to exist.

 

 

[Nigerian Telegraph]

One Comment

  1. Nick

    November 30, 2013 at 5:17 pm

    I think the idea of InfraCo is great because telecom companies face right-of-way problems when trying to lay fibre optics around the country. Since InfraCo is government driven this should make this process much faster assuming that the company is operates efficiently. I hope this vision will continue when government changes because this has the potential to increase internet penetration and improve quality of service.

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