Concerns over delay in passage of telecoms infrastructure law

The bill which was sent to the National Assembly two years ago is to curb criminal activities unleashed on telecommunications infrastructures in Nigeria.Cases of telecoms cable vandalism, fibre cut and theft of power generating equipment at various transceiver base stations (BTSs), are on the rampage with the latest incident involving a gang specialised in telecoms […]

The bill which was sent to the National Assembly two years ago is to curb criminal activities unleashed on telecommunications infrastructures in Nigeria.
Cases of telecoms cable vandalism, fibre cut and theft of power generating equipment at various transceiver base stations (BTSs), are on the rampage with the latest incident involving a gang specialised in telecoms cable stealing in Edo State. They were apprehended by the Nigerian Police Force just last week.
Industry experts have said cases of vandalism and damage to telecoms infrastructures would to  threaten the performance index of the sector with adverse effect on Quality of Service (QoS) rendered by various service providers.
Telecoms operators have also being hiding under this disguise of vandalism, challenges in infrastructures roll-out multiple taxation as well as other challenges facing the sector as an excuse for their inability to offer seamless telecoms services to their over 121 million subscribers.
Service providers claim that several fibre cut are being recorded on a daily basis even intentionally by road contractors. For instance, MTN said an average of 70 fiber cuts occur monthly on its cable infrastructures across the country.
Major attacks on telecoms facilities began in 2012, when Boko Haram carried an onslaught against telecoms infrastructures in some states
in the north. In the incident, about 30 base stations providing a large percentage of traffic support for voice and data to subscribers in some part of the north were bombed by suspected Boko Haram insurgents.
However, while many countries have enacted laws to classify telecoms infrastructures as national security infrastructures with heavy punishment put in place for whoever damage such facilities; Nigeria continues to fickle in the passage of the bill, the trend that poses further threats to investments in the industry.
Commenting on the situation, an IT expert, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu lamented that such a crucial bill is left unattended to by the lawmakers.
He said, “It is a pity that it is enjoying this extent of delay. I do not know how such things re pushed in the National Assembly and what amount of work the Ministry and NCC should do or have done.”
Meanwhile operators have unanimously stressed the need to fast track passage of the bill as part a way of addressing some of the underlying impediments in the telecoms sector.
The Chief Executive Officer for, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya said people calling for sanctions of service providers do not have full understating of challenges facing the sector.
Ogunsanya who insisted that sanction is not the right thing to do, said, “If you don’t not talk about the underlying issues, you will not get quality of services right, issues around multiple taxation, right of way, vandalism and all of that.”
Also, MTN Corporate Services Executive, Mr. Akinwale Goodluck said about 160 MTN sites are currently down in the north east due to insurgency while the company cannot gain access to service those in operation in areas with security challenge.
He explained that MTN has received letters from all local government in Lagos state asking the operator to pay for radio emission, the charge he described as unconstitutional.
According to him, if care is not taking some people from these local governments can wake up one day and start shutting down MTN sites for this illegal request but with such law in place, telecoms infrastructure will protected from unwarranted damage.
Goodluck said, “In the last two or three days I have received letters from every local government in Lagos state it seems letters were written by the same person because it word for word asking us to come and pay for radio frequency emission completely not within the remit of local government in terms of what the constitution has provided for the three ties for taxation what will happen is that one day somebody from the local government will just go and shut down a base station and people will be complaining about quality of service these are things beyond our control.”
 “We know that the government is working to declare telecommunication infrastructure as critical national infrastructure is work in progress it not happens yet but we are hoping that it will happen soon so that it can prevent state and local government agencies willingly shutting down sites, closing switches all those things impact the network.”