Goodluck identifies challenges of submarine distribution

The Corporate Services Executive (CSE), MTN Nigeria, Mr. Wale Goodluck has identified as challenge the distribution of submarine cables beyond landing at the national sea shores, reports ONYINYE NWAGWU.

Goodluck who made this observation at a parley with newsmen in Abuja noted that the challenge facing Nigeria is not necessarily bringing the cable and landing same on the beach but the inability to distribute it inland.

He also said that with the anticipated availability of submarine cables by Glo-1 and Main One, in the country that price of bandwidth would come down considerably.

Mr. Goodluck equally said that the positive impact of submarine bandwidth would be huge on the economy and will ensure that the country catches up with the rest of the world in terms of telecommunications enabled development.

“The larger effect will also be on the quality of service we all will be getting from data services. Essentially the internet will be a lot faster and a lot more stable. It will change the way we work, play and the way we socialize. A lot of things that we were not able to do now because of the bandwidth will be appear,” he pointed out.

He recalled that about a few months ago when the SAT-3 had a problem, telecommunication and banking services were affected nationwide, stressing that with the three cables; Main One, Glo-1 and SAT-3, subscribers will see a major reduction in the price of bandwidth.

On high tariffs charged by providers, he said “the issue of tariffs is always a sensitive issue for consumer; I believe strongly that tariffs will come down. Tariffs will best be driven by competition as we have more robust competition in this market, tariffs will come down.”

According to him, the Nigeria telecommunication market is perhaps one of the most competitive in the world, considering the number of operators in the country.

“Nigeria has a robust competition. People will be allowed to make a choice. I believe competition will bring price down. Tariffs has not gone up but every year there is inflation, unfortunately the power situation that we met in 2001 when we started has not improved and we are still expanding significant resources just to fuel base stations. It is still an expensive industry and cash intensive,” he said.

Maintaining that tariffs will come down, but may not come down as soon as we may like, Goodluck pointed out that if there is today significant improvement on power, almost immediately there will be tariffs reduction.


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