Equatel Telecom bags BID award

Equatel Telecommunic-ations Ltd, has bagged the celebrated International World Quality Commitment Award, in Paris, France.

The organisers, Business Initiative Direction (BID), said the award was in recognition of Equatel’s commitment to quality, leadership, technology and innovation, just as telco earned the award for pioneering a unique technology that facilitates the operation of public payphones over Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) frequencies, thereby granting access to subscribers on their personalized phone lines through the use of solid Subscribers Identification Module (SIM) cards that function as virtual handsets.

The technology offers a total subscriber experience to non handset owners, without the necessity of owning a handset.

President and CEO of Business Initiative Directions, Mr. Jose E. Prieto, noted that Equatel and other awarded companies were symbols of commitment to leadership, technology and innovation which make them models for other companies in their sectors.

“The companies from 53 countries from Europe, America, Africa, Asia and Oceania received the International World Quality Commitment Award as a recognition of their achievements in spreading quality culture,” he said, stressing that it was of special international significance for these companies to join B.I.D.’s historic group of most important companies in the world.

Savouring the award, Chief Executive Officer, Equatel Telecom, Mr. Henry Onaga, said it is another plus for his company’s creativity and innovativeness.

“When we developed this technology that won us this award, we had the low income earners in
mind, recognizing that the joy of modern communications has eluded them on account of the high cost of telecommunications collaterals, which act as a barrier to them,” he said.

He pointed out that based on this technology, GSM wireless SIM, offered by his firm supports the community based payphone initiative of different telecom operators, including MTN, Zain among others.

“The award is not only a plus to Equatel but a testimony that the entire bubbling Nigerian telecoms sector cannot be described as a fortuitous occurrence, but has been a product of careful planning and vision on the part of the Nigerian government and particularly the regulator, the Nigerian Communications commission (NCC),” he said.

He, however, promised that the award would provide the needed boost to spur his firm further in effort at bridging the telecoms divide between the poor and the rich in Nigeria.

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