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| *Mike Ikpoki, MTN Nigeria CEO |
MTN Nigeria has
rolled out a record 10,000 base stations across the country, reinforcing its
position as the largest telecom network in Africa.
The additional
base stations are expected to contribute to significant improvements to quality
of service. They are a major component of the company’s infrastructure and they
have direct impact on network capacity and the experience of customers.
MTN Nigeria
Chief Executive Officer, Michael Ikpoki, said the company is focused on three major
areas, one of them being significant improvement of customer experience. He
said that MTN would be building on a track record of aggressive investment in
the network to ramp up capacity and ultimately improve service quality.
Ikpoki said MTN
has led the industry in terms of rapid network rollout, adding that the
company’s aggressive drive to significantly improve customer experience on the
network in the last few months has led to record deployment of base stations
across the country.
“In the last
few months, we have ramped up our rollout. Last month we had a record rollout
figure and we are currently rolling out up to 300 sites a month to make sure
that we have enough capacity. We are getting more head-room, more dormant
capacity in the network. That way, we can carry more traffic and give our
customers a decent quality of service on a consistent basis. Indeed, there has
been noticeable improvement and this will continue,” Ikpoki said.
The first
indigenous CEO of MTN Nigeria noted that apart from crossing the 10,000 base
station deployment mark, the company has also installed additional switching
centres,
aside from its world-class network management centre, and
approximately 20,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cable cross country
and around metropolitan hubs.
“If you look at
our investment portfolio from inception till now, MTN has invested more than a
trillion naira. From whichever angle you look at it, by normal indices in terms
of investment ratio, in most emerging markets, any ratio above 15-17 percent of
revenue is a decent ratio in terms of investment. We are doing far in excess of
that at MTN Nigeria. This year, we are going to be doing about 42 percent of
revenue as capital investment. Last year we did 34 percent of revenue as
capital investment,” he said.
Ikpoki said
following the unrelenting investment, service quality has actually improved,
but there is still room for improvement, pointing out that operational
challenges relating to the environment sometimes robbed the network of the gains
it has made in capacity expansion.
“Challenges
with quality of service are related to operational issues and I know a lot has
been said about these challenges. However, we acknowledge that we have a
responsibility to ensure we deliver a good customer experience. That is
something we take very seriously. That said, there are quite a number of
operational issues which we cannot wish away. Sixty to seventy percent of the
challenges we have are mainly power-related,” he said.
The CEO said
that other impediments relate to multiple taxation and over-regulation
resulting in interference with MTN infrastructure by various state and local
Governments.
“Right now, we
need to have a harmonized tax regime in all the states and local governments or
else, we will continue to have a situation where roll out is impeded. So it is
a very complex logistical matter to effectively manage a network of this size
in an environment where taxes and levies are often diverse and completely
arbitrary. But we are doing the very best we can and we are receiving a great
deal of support from the NCC, the Ministry of Communication Technology and
other Government stakeholders. It is in every one’s interest for us to deliver
excellent service and this is our goal,” he said.
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