NatCom Development and Investment Limited, the company that acquired the Assets and Liabilities of the defunct NITEL and MTEL in 2014, has taken the bull by the horn by stating its road map to improving the Broadband in Nigeria through the recently reactivation of Nigeria’s SAT-3 submarine cable system and deploying a brand new 4 G Mobile Network covering 3 cities in Nigeria, namely Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, before the end of 2015. The company also made known other laudable plans to take the Telecoms sector in Nigeria to the next level, trading under a new brand, NTEL.
These were disclosed by the CEO of the company, Mr. Kamar Abass on October 29, 2015 at a Media Luncheon organized by the company for media Executives in Lagos.
He said that the one of the reasons behind the company’s intention of increasing Broadband in Nigeria is that, the growth of Broadband, increased Broadband penetration, increases in the speed of Broadband, all deliver growth in the people. “Using data allows people to be more productive. People who are more productive can earn more money. You earn more money, you can spend more. More spending drives investment, and investment, of course, drives growth”, Abass maintained.
Another reason for wanting to increase the bandwidth in Nigeria is that there is no more 2G growth in the Nigerian market with about 170 million rolled out and not rising any further but in fact has continued to fall. The reason for this is because more people are now seeking to buy mobile phones that they can use to access the internet and the 2G bandwidth is not a good candidate to achieve this. Abass maintained that the market for 3G, which is the alternative to the 2G in this regards, is currently on the rise, gaining on the losses of the 2G.
The CEO went on to state that the projection before now was that the 3G market will start to fall by 2018 which will give the 4G a prominence to enter the market, but he opined that NTEL, however intends to fast-track the entry and prominence of 4G on Broadband, which is faster, to the Nigerian market later this year, 2015.
Abass gave an overview of the overall business thrust of the new brand NTEL as follow:
- Mobile business: This, according to him, will be the largest part of NTEL’s business with 4G mobile delivery in states covered in Nigeria. The Mobile Network is also slated to be called NTEL mobile.
- International Voice: The CEO stated that NTEL currently has direct communications between Lagos in Nigeria and 35 other countries with about 10 million minutes delivered to Nigeria every day and about an equal amount of minutes going out too every day. He maintained that NTEL intends to build on that and that the company is committed to providing direct voice connection and give excellent voice termination between Nigeria and other countries of the world.
- International Bandwidth over SAT-3: Here, the CEO said that NTEL will have Metro-Bandwidth, which will give it the ability to connect with homes, offices, businesses and all sorts of premises connected by fibre to NTEL Network and other locations.
- Fixed Services: Fixed services, according to Abass, will provide the ability to have a phone in a place rather than just in connection to a person. NTEL will provide Fixed Services to the populace for Voice, Data and TV, delivered to their houses, with a target of achieving this by the first half of 2016.
SAT-3, the CEO explained, is an acronym for South Atlantic 3, which is a 3rd generation of submarine cable system that addressed the West African coast and WASC is its other name which stands for West African Submarine Cable. It is also known as SAFE, which stands for South Africa and Far Eastern leg of this cable. The project, in its 12th year, runs the submarine cables from the coast of Portugal, through Spain, North Africa, West Africa, South Africa and on to India and the far Eastern coasts.
It is about 30,000km long, with the ability to connect all the cities on its route from Europe, Africa and the Far East with landing points in 15 countries. It has the capacity of 1,000 MB per second. SAT-3 is owned by 35 countries. of which the Nigerian government was one, through the defunct NITEL. With the ownership of NITEL’s Assets and Liabilities, however, the ownership share of 6.2% has passed on to NTEL.
The CEO, Mr. Kamar Abass, concluded by by stating that NTEL is also currently building a Tier 3 Data Center in Lagos. With this, NTEL is , therefore, allowed to have not more than 24 minutes downtime in a year. The size of the current Tier 3 Data Center is 600sqm which NTEL intends to increase to 6,000sqm over time.
NTEL, he ended, is committed to providing excellent service to the Nigerian Market.
By: Wale Oguntokun
Techsmart.ng
