?
ntel is a company raised from the privatization of the former state enterprise NITEL.It was previously branded ‘Natcom’.The infrastructure it has in Nigeria (Federal Backbone) as a starting point was practically nonexistent so it continues to have challenges with achieving a comprehensive new federal infrastructural roll out.It can probably succeed in the short term as an MVNO but the race is on to get its own solid infrastructure.It currently claims to have quality services in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.It has the same challenges Etisalat had in 2008, but this is 2020 and things will have to be done faster, more efficiently, cheaper, for it to contest this market.
ntel experienced some leadership challenges following the departure of CEO, Kamarr Abass some years back.
One of the big plusses for ntel was the jewel in the crown of NITEL architecture: the Submarine Cable SAT-3.It had integrity issues, and though ntel claim to have refurbished it, it is unclear what the technical details of this are.
ntel for a period went on a price war offering STM1, 4 and 16 capacity over SAT 3 at a huge reduction to Main One which were not sustainable.Two CEOs later from Kamarr, Babatunde Omotoba is now the force driving ntel to work towards a more impactful presence in the market.Draft Zain DWDM architecture from circa 2007 Other MNO Infrastructure players in Nigeria
Medallion Communications
Own the ‘preferred’ co-location sites for the industry at Saka Tinubu, Victoria Island, Lagos and off Durban Street, Abuja.Everybody that is anybody in the industry co-locates with them.They are the melting pot where anybody credible can hand off connectivity to anybody else.However, in particular Saka Tinubu is over-congested.A case can be made for a new defacto central point for co-location in Lagos.The dynamics of getting a seismic shift on this is as much pseudo political as it is technical.
Ikechukwu Nnamani, Medallion Communications CEO and founder has been elected the new President, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON).The Tower Companies
Since IHS did a deal some years back to take all Helios Towers stock in Nigeria, Federally, for a while, they were really the only show in town.The biggest player in the arena historically was Alan Dick West Africa Limited, who handled most of the MTN roll out within their scope in the early days, and went bankrupt muted by difficulty regarding timely MTN payments.Even a decade later, liquidators for Alan Dick were still in court in Nigeria with MTN.
In the early part of the millennium, the only alternative appearing to show promise was MTI but this company has now adopted a more contracted footprint since being purchased by Worldwide Ventures, and only a few sites around Lagos ‘islands’ now remain The enlarged IHS saw liquidity challenges to support payments to keep the network fit for purpose.
Shifts in foreign exchange rates haven’t helped, nor has an investment dynamic that links IHS with MTN and 9Mobile.Parts of planned upgrades to the e-site product by a Swedish company ‘Flexenclosure’ were put on the ‘slow train’ and other parts have been put on hold indefinitely.IHS towers is a critical element of the carrier agnostic Wholesale MNO network, and if they are in trouble, then any company with MVNO aspirations for the Nigeria market may be in trouble, and any company with long term MNO plans but needs to hit the ground running with MVNO model may also be in trouble.
Gaps in markets don’t stay indefinitely and since then two significant players, American Tower Company (Nigeria) and Pan African Towers arrived.ATC acquired Airtel’s towers mid way through the last decade, though the deal has Airtel getting tariff waiver up to 2025.Pan African Towers, an indigenous telecom infrastructure company has won big at the 4th Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecom Awards (NTITA) earlier this month (November 2020).CEO of Pan African Towers, Wole Abu has been elected as the new Publicity Secretary for ATCON.
Independent sources vary on infrastructure capacity but both are muted to have somewhere between 2000 and 5000 sites.This is significantly below the 25000+ towers IHS have in their portfolio.If IHS sneezes, a lot of the community will catch colds.The battle of the datacentres
Rackcentre: Rackcentre is a Tier 3 standard datacentre facility provided by a Lebanese-Nigerian family business – The Jagal Group.
It was built by Jagal Construction, which this author partnered with on the Netcom AIS Project.It is MNO agnostic, so its owners are not in any other part of the industry that might give them a conflict of interest for any particular customer.They promote this point heavily on their website.
Rackcentre was one of Jagal Groups efforts to diversify income streams to reduce exposure to Oil and Gas.Maher Jarmakani made what was intended to be a ‘groundbreaking’ speech to a packed audience at Nigerdock 2015, though the group as a whole struggled the next year and dropped employees from around 4000 to 500.
ntel were one of the first to have a presence at Rack Centre through SAT 3.WACS followed, and so did Dangote.Rackcentre has since received a major shot in the arm from PE company Actis (a privatization of the former UK Commonwealth Development Corporation), to the tune of $250m USD.Actis has a strong focus on Africa and South America and regularly sniffs around big markets like Nigeria.
In 2018 following the demise of Pakistani tycoon Arif Naqvi’s Abraaj Group, Actis snapped up all its African holdings which included its stake in Austin Okere’s CWG.In the same year, Rackcentre, was named the winner in the Best Data Centre Innovation category of Capacity Europe Global Carrier Awards in London, beating competition from UK, US, Canada and Sweden.
MDX-i: A data centre with a plethora of services on par with Rackcentre.Not as neutral as Rackcentre as they are owned by MainOne .This is a double edged sword .
Main one owns its own Submarine Cable over which it achieves Tier 1 peering.It has also built up an intercity fibre backbone in Nigeria and has several metro fibre networks in key cities, principally Lagos.
When we see that Funke Okeke’s Main One is also achieving an MDX-i standard facility in Accra.Ghana’s Silicon Valley – Appolonia City, we know that this is fast becoming a Pan African footprint.Ok – MainOne doesn’t have a tower company and doesn’t have licensed MNO spectrum.
But they can easily barter, (common in Nigerian Wholesale MNO/Infrastructure community) to get the former, and with Orange now having a significant investment in Main One, they can leverage them to achieve the latter.
But while they can almost be a one stop shop for everything, in the early days Main One simply sold submarine cable capacity to all comers, with no interest in the downstream business.
As it diversified its own infrastructure it began to gradually drill down to reach different user communities which had been the sole bread and butter of its most ardent and long standing customers.For to reduce competitor visibility on a network, avoid adding business capacity to a potential competitor, and in some cases, reacting to the experience of owning ‘the hand that fed which got bitten’ some customers may be reluctant to use MDX-i, preferring instead for service from a company that so far has stuck to solely offering datacentre services, such as Rackcentre.
However, the rate at which Main One is building out on its network and showing signs of moving beyond a vision for Nigeria, but a vision for Africa, MDXi may ultimately find its business dominated by one internal customer (Main One), with customers from the external market reduced to being the icing on a very deep layered cake.
As Orange further develops its regional infrastructure, nothing is beyond possibility.
And remember… Orange OWNS a Tier 1 facility –‘Open Transit’ Orange’s ‘Djoliba’ was achieved through bringing a new terrestrial regional backbone to enhance the already existent subsea fibre network landing overseas connectivity throughout West Africa.The new regional backbone reaches eight countries – Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal ; 16 points of presence.The Djoliba terrestrial fibre network spans over 10,000 km.Note that one of the three subsea elements depicted is Main One
21st Century Limited (21CTL): 21CTL has recently built the very first Tier 4 compliant Datacente in Nigeria.
This puts it technically on a different plane to competitors in the category.The company was originally founded in 1997 and by the early part of the new millennium had the best fibre metro network from the original business hub around Marina Lagos to the newer commercial buildings and fashionable urban residences of Ikoyi and Victoria Island.They extended to GRA Ikeja and evolved the network in tandem with construction development of the Lekki Peninsula While 21CTL provides an enviable array of enterprise services, it is unclear to what extent it has succeeded in expanding its network beyond metro coverage of Lagos business districts.It is equally unclear what the difference between Tier 4 and Tier 3 will mean as monetizing impact for the current customer landscape.
It’s therefore difficult to compare the potential of 21CTL with the extensive infrastructure MDXi can leverage through Main One, on the one hand, and the impartiality and independence from enterprise offerings claimed by Rackcentre on the other..21CTL received Fiber Optic Company of the Year at BoICT Awards, 2015.Its founder and CEO is Wale Ajisebutu.21CTL HQ in Lekki is as much a prime corporate real-estate landlord, and a tech hub as it is, a home for 21CTL.
Others:
Galaxy Backbone is intended to be the appointed provider of communications solutions to FGN, its civil services, devolved agencies and quangos.
It is located in Abuja.In reality it has very little of its own infrastructure and invites external providers to tender for opportunities issued to it.
It is supposed to have a mandate as the ‘required’ route to such opportunities and act like a gatekeeper.This author however has executed multiple proposal presentations to for instance: NNPC, NLNG, Nigerian Police High Command (including the IG) and in 2009, even the ex Nigerian Minister of Information and Communications herself, the late Professor (Mrs.) Dora Nkem Akunyili.Were it, that peer agencies in and associated with Civil Service, were in full acceptance of Galaxy Backbones’ supposed ‘Gateway’ mandate, these kinds of direct business development approaches would not have been possible.
Submarine Cable Owners (Needed to get international access and peer with Tier 1 internet providers) – SAT-3 Suburban, (ntel) Main One Cable, WACS, ACE (Glo has its own).Google and Facebook both have Submarine Cable in development.
Broadbased Telecom .
– Metro Lagos fibre networks.Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecom Awards 2020 awarded Broadbased Telecom ‘ Wholesale Telecom Provider of the Year ‘ ( see section higher up on The Nigerian Infrastructure Ecosystem and ‘Wholesale MNO’ concept.) and ‘Metropolitan Fiber Infrastructure Company of the Year’.Separately the award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Telecom Industry was awarded to its MD/CEO, Prince Henry Iseghohi, for the third time.
Bitflux : A current license holder of Nigeria spectrum for 4G/LTE, muted to be interested in MVNO, but no movement to market as yet.VSAT Services available to Nigeria
Operators in Nigeria can supplement their terrestrial networks and submarine cable access through the use of VSAT technology to access foreign teleports, as well as providing connectivity solutions to remote locations.The following are examples of providers who have a footprint that can serve Nigeria:
Intelsat : C Band VSAT service footprint over Nigeria.An illustration of Intelsat global coverage.
SES: Aside from C Band VSAT service footprint over Nigeria, SES also purchased O3b a medium orbit VSAT provider which while less vulnerable than fibre, has lower latency than service from a typical VSAT satellite because of its proximity to earth.It is a constellation of 20 at an altitude of 8,062 kilometres (5,009 miles), less than one quarter of the altitude of typical geostationary satellites.
The low orbit reduces latency to the point it is comparable with fibre.An artists visual of a deployed SES O3b satellite Cost can be an issue here as a lower orbit means thicker air, which causes greater headwinds and thus greater friction, having a knock on cost to operational maintenance.
Space-X.Elon Musk currently has a plan involving a medium orbit of around 1000 satellites to cover Africa.
However, there isn’t sufficient detail at this stage to compare it with SES/O3b 20 unit constellation on either total space segment available or what proportion of the service will cover Nigeria or what its performance will be.
Gilat – Ku Band VSAT service footprint over Nigeria.They also provide Ka – band customer hubs and terminals for O3b VSAT services.A parting word MNOs vs.MVNOs
No provider has full network independence.In Nigeria, Glo probably comes closest.
Where is the line drawn that distinguishes between when a Telecoms Services Provider has enough of its own infrastructure to be labelled an MNO rather than an MVNO? This is akin to the proverbial ‘how long is a piece of string’!
It is really down to the business model, objectives, strategy, and the operators’ term business plan, and, at commencement of operations, if all this is realistic in the context of the venture capital available.
A new MNO while it is in the process of rolling out infrastructure will almost certainly be an MVNO to start with but has genuine intent to become a network independent MNO as per the business plan.This is different from a company which always intends to have an MVNO operational model.
Redundancy, Redundancy and Redundancy.
When circuits fail, data in transit needs to find an alternative path.‘Redundancy’ is the term for ensuring these paths exist, and are operationally fit for seamless migration of moving data in real time.
Most of the fully fledged independent infrastructure MNO’s will go to Wholesale MNOs to get redundant circuits on their backbones.Sometimes they will even swap capacity on circuits with each other.If the mother of all melt downs scenario is considered, the one with enough leased capacity to support their networks, at least on the short term, will be the one least likely to go down.
Link Redundancy and Path Redundancy: If fibre passing through underground ducting is achieving redundancy through cores in two cables, or worse, two cores in the same cable, and some activity perforates right across the duct, both the link and redundancy are lost and the connection goes down.If two microwave radios are put on two poles on the same high rooftop, or worse, both on the same pole, and a new high rise building is constructed blocking the primary link, again, both the link and redundancy are lost and the connection goes down (They will have identical Fresnel Zone).
Path redundancy involves validating that the redundant link takes a completely different physical route than the primary link.In Nigeria, fully resilient path redundancy end to end is difficult to achieve and expensive.
Another issue is that MVNOs in mature market are accustomed to managing their deals with their wholesalers, and performance outages through SLAs, but in Nigeria it will be the company with their name on a sim card in use by a customer that will suffer brand damage.If a person wants to wish their aged grandmother in a village happy birthday and there is network failure..even if they are on a post-paid tariff, a 100 Naira re-credit doesn’t restore that moment.
Currency exchange rates are also an issue.Specialist infrastructure hardware is not made in Nigeria.
While the Naira is far from being in freefall… the overall prevailing trend is down.If capital reserves for overseas purchases are already abroad, it isn’t relevant, however if the reserves are in local currency then executing the overseas purchase process or interim solutions for capital reserve management need to be looked at.
Finally, while infrastructure is an asset, it’s important to acknowledge this asset isn’t dynamically realizable.Few predicted the fall of Murmar Gadaffi in Libya in 2011 and the ensuing chaos.Even less the end of the rule of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt later the same year, and a level of civil disobedience that saw what was the second country by GDP on the continent, drop like a stone to number six.It is established that unsecured Libyan light arms found their way to Boko Haram.Without over-reacting, it is important to acknowledge potential risk regarding political stability when making investment decisions.
Additionally, many feel Nigeria has moved beyond ‘Biafra’, but less than two years ago, there has been incidents around the incarceration of the protagonist for Igbo self-determination, Nnamdi Kanu.We have also seen unease around the rise of Oodua Action Movement and Reformed Niger Delta Avengers and most recently, the uncertainty around #ENDSARS.Elsewhere in the region there is instability with the genocide involving school children in Cameroon, Military Rule in Mali, election unrest in Guinea and Cote D’Ivoire, and most recently, the escalation in Burkina Faso.
Towers cannot be folded up and put in a neat little suit case.
Fibre can’t be dug up out of the ground, magically translated into its value in hard currency, and sent by electronic transfer to a bank account at a secure foreign location or converted to Crypto currency! MTN Nigeria OTT and the Tariff Future
‘An over-the-top is a streaming media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet.OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms, the companies that traditionally act as a controller or distributor of such content.It has also been used to describe apps for phones that transmit data in this manner’– Wikipedia.
Examples : Kik, Viber, WhatsApp, Apple’s iMessage, Skype, WeChat, Google Allo – smartphone messages Netflix, HBO, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Video or Apple TV – video streaming Facetime, Viber, WeChat, WhatsApp and Skype – video or voice calling World of Warcraft, Google’s Twitch, Xbox 360 and YouTube – gaming
While adoption of OTT for some services has been strong, usage has only reached a fraction of its full potential.
The main obstacle has been metered data services to smartphones.While many in Nigeria will claim they, their family, friends and colleagues use OTT by preference all the time, the reality is the Nigerians that will get the chance to read this article are not fairly reflective of the general population.
It is a bit like modern trade in Nigeria.Regular patronage of a Mall is only possible for a few million out of a population that is headed for the 250 million mark.These are probably the same people that get to use OTT services on demand.
The rest use open air markets, kiosks and localized small vendors for food and household.They don’t get Wifi access through work or social movement, and they have to be fairly frugal with the intermittent purchase of pre-paid credit that can have some data allowance bundled.
On July 26 this year, the day after National Nigerian Diaspora day, President Buhari thanked the Diaspora for the $25bn sent to relatives.The Annual Diaspora Remittance Exceeds 80% of the Yearly Budget
This correlates roughly to the magnitude of regular overseas diasporas contact with Nigerians many of which are in need.
Those overseas will generally be too busy to take calls on demand and will then want to call at a time of their choosing, at which time, the Nigerian side will invariably have insufficient data left to accept the call over OTT.
This then forces the overseas caller down the MNO network route, which triggers punitive International Termination Rates (ITRs.) These punitive ITRs have been preventing Nigeria from being included in unmetered packages offered by SME MVNOs and third party access card operators in North America and Europe.Nigeria is one of the least ‘bundleable’ countries for call deals.
In September this year, the EVC of NCC, Prof.Umar Danbatta committed to reviewing the ITR regime, saying ‘where ITR is not properly regulated, it tends to have a negative effect on a market like Nigeria with major supply-side challenges and associated socio-economic implications’
Clearly the Nigerians locally that hail the perceived eclipse of normal calls by OTT, are not one of the masses with dependency on overseas help.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, during an address at a Webinar organised by Lead Inspire Network also committed to a new National Policy on zero rating on educational websites which would allow the consumption of contents without charges to normal data plan.
These are all measures heading in the right direction, and with the headway made earlier this year in securing positive response from different state governors on reducing ROW (Right of Way) charges, also championed by former President of ATCON, Olu Teniola, the pressure is now on the big 5 MNOs to make something happen for economically disadvantaged and hitherto poorly serviced rural communities.There is however, a considerable journey between headline announcements and actions that are seen to work.
In the meantime, MNOs seem addicted to the practice of selling metered data as a painkiller for their revenue challenges.Yet this is the one obstacle that stands in the way of a mass explosion to over 200 million users in Nigeria.
While MNOs will be keen to move forward to deliver 5G to their most lucrative and demanding of customer geographies, the political debate will continue to ramp up on ensuring that all of Nigeria has at least some form of service.
These two competing demands for investment may become a double whammy pressure on revenue.MNOs need a ‘third way’.
Perhaps the MNOs need to send their brightest minds to Tekedia Institute, where Ndubuisi Ekekwe can introduce them to the concept of building category-king brands by mastering how evolving business models like One Oasis, Double Play and Aggregation Construct can be effectively deployed in the industry to create leverage-able anchors to unlock opportunities and growth.
Through this, perhaps they can develop a strategy with a uniquely Nigerian flavour, to give unmetered access to users willing to on-board some kind of service app, either MNO owned or third party partnership? This can then be the new revenue stream to compensate for the loss of metered sales.This way everyone wins.Share this:.
