ALTON attracted 10 ICT firms @ CTO summit-08

The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) attracted some 10 foreign telecom firms from the United Kingdom (UK), to the just concluded Information and Communications Technology (ICT) summit and exhibition put together by the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO), Federal Ministry of Information and Communications in collaboration with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Disclosing this, ALTON President, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo said his group was happy to have contributed its quota as far as the CTO summit was concerned.

He also disclosed that ALTON did not achieve this alone because the United Kingdom’s Embassy in Nigeria was in full support of the arrangement.

Speaking after the dinner organized by the UK embassy in collaboration with ALTON in honour of the UK Trade mission, he said, his group would continue to join forces with relevant agencies of the government and private sector toward attracting investors to the nation’s telecom market.

Also speaking, the Publicity Secretary of ALTON, Mr. Damian Udeh gave the names of some of the UK participants to include the British Telecoms represented by Michael Munson who is the account director for West Africa, Iceni Mobile Limited led by its Founding Director, Mr. Dominic Vergine, the managing Director, Miles Media Limited, Mr. Vincent Iweka, General Manager, RPC Logistics, Mr. Ian Hodges,
Mr. Justin Miller, Telecom Consultant and Bphones UK represented by its chief executive officer, Pano Kroko, among others.

In a related development, ALTON has said that customer satisfaction is the only key to post-telecom boom success in the nation’s telecommunications sector and called for the protection of telecommunications infrastructure through the passage of the bills to that effect by the National Assembly (NAS).

Mr. Adebayo who made the call while speaking with correspondents during the recently concluded 2008, West African Telecommunications Exhibition (W.Afri.Tel) in Lagos, said the law is supposed to protect telecommunications infrastructure from vandalization.

According to him, if the government could classify telecommunications infrastructure as national issue as was the case during the days of National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) through the establishment of miscellaneous decree on vandalization, “we would sleep with our two eyes closed and there would be effective service delivery.”

The ALTON boss noted that for Nigerians to enjoy better service delivery from operators, there is need for constant power supply.

He also said ALTON is poised to look at issues surrounding quality of service
beyond mere infrastructure.


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