Why MTN Nigeria Is Spending US$1.3Billion On Network Modernization

L-R: General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Mrs. Funmi Omogbenigun; Chief Technical Officer, Mrs. Lynda Saint-Nwafor; and Corporate Services Executive, Mr. Akinwale Goodluck; all of MTN Nigeria at a press conference announcing MTN’s nationwide network modernisation project in Lagos

By ROMMY IMAH

One issue that has repeatedly surfaced at telecommunications meets in this part of the world is that of poor quality of service by telecom service providers. Since the coming of the Global System on Mobile (GSM) communications in Nigeria, the phrase- ‘poor quality of service’ has stubbornly refused to disappear from the country’s telecoms dictionary.

In fact, consumers of telecommunications services especially those of GSM services have ceaselessly accused GSM operators of deliberately indulging in delivering poor quality of service to Nigerians. At the phenomenal Telecoms Consumers Parliament introduced by the country’s telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, issue of poor quality of service has consistently dominated complaints by parliamentarians.

Only a couple of months ago, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC brought the sledge hammer on the four GSM operators in the country for not meeting with the industry’s Key Performance Indicators, KPIs especially that of quality of service. All the four GSM operators were cumulatively fined N1.7billion.

But the service providers have attributed the perceived poor quality of service to an avalanche of problems ravaging the industry. They have and rightly too, argued that they were in business to make profit and so, do not see the reason why they should revel in poor service delivery that would obviously affect their Return on Investment, RoI.

MTN for instance, had about a month before the imposition of the fine on it complained bitterly about the growing damage to its fibre optic network across the country, alleging that its network suffers more than 70 fibre cuts every month. MTN attributed this development to poor road construction practices which account for 42 percent of the incidents; damages by criminals and hoodlums which account for 25 percent; as well as other incidents including sabotage, accounting for 33 percent.  

MTN’s Corporate Services Executive, Wale Goodluck had in his reaction to the NCC fine stated that the leading GSM operator remained committed to ensuring the provision of the best quality of service for its teeming subscribers. “MTN continues to employ the greatest effort to overcome the infrastructural and environmental challenges that impede the delivery of consistently good quality of service”, he said.

Goodluck reiterated the challenges faced by operators in Nigeria including unavailability of regular power supply, insecurity of infrastructure, vandalization, and the menace of multiple taxation and regulation. He revealed that the company expends billions of naira annually on diesel, to power its generating sets across the country.

He cited as examples, the difficulties encountered by MTN in Abia State in 2011 when it was involved in a face-off with the State Government over infrastructure levy as well as the face- off between NESREA and NCC over jurisdiction to intervene in specific regulatory issues, leading to the closure of a number of MTN sites in Abuja, the FCT. In each case, as with numerous such incidents all over the country, MTN’s ability to service its customers has been severely impaired.

“In the past, we have lost network availability in over 1000 base stations cumulatively across the network as a result of these cuts. This has affected services predominantly in the South East, particularly, Onitsha and Port Harcourt, and also other

areas such as Kano, Abuja, Kaduna, and Ibadan, with customers experiencing complete loss of service in some of the locations, while others experienced severe difficulties in making and receiving calls in other locations,” said Goodluck.

To drive home its claim on the challenges it has faced trying to offer Nigerians good quality of service, MTN had sometime in April this year published full page advertorials in the newspapers, alerting the public to the growing incidences of criminal damage to its infrastructure in various parts of the country and the impact this is having on its effort at good quality of service delivery for its subscribers across the nation.

But these challenges notwithstanding, MTN Nigeria seems determined to prove that indeed it is committed to delivering to Nigerians good quality of service, going by recent pronouncements by some executives of the company.

At a recent press briefing held in Lagos, MTN said it has commenced a comprehensive network modernisation and swap-out exercise that is expected to cover its extensive network across the country over a span of nine months. It said the exercise will entail the upgrade and replacement of key network components with newer versions so as to enhance capacity and much improved quality of service.

The MTN Corporate Services Executive told journalists that the project which had been in the pipeline for several months commenced some weeks ago after some intensive planning adding that the company has clearly drawn the roadmap for the successful implementation of the project expected to gulp over US$1.3billion.

“Our local team is working closely with our technical partners and experts began work in April. They have done much of the backend work preparatory to the actual swapping of network components in the days ahead”, said Goodluck.

To minimize impact on the quality of service, the project will be carried out at night in addition to having it done in clusters, such that select Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) in disparate parts of the country can undergo simultaneous upgrade to further ensure that the negative impact of the exercise is brought to its barest minimum.

Goodluck promised that even though on the course of executing the project, there might be slight inconveniences to subscribers in certain areas, especially at night, MTN customers will be ushered into a new era of enhanced service quality upon the completion of the project that will involve three renowned telecom equipment builders namely: Huawei, ZTE and Ericsson.

According to him, “The network modernisation and swap-out project is part of the US$1.3b investment we have earmarked for 2012, and this investment like many we’ve consistently made since our inception, is in pursuit of world-class quality of service on our network. We are delighted that this project brings us within a grasping distance of the mark.”

Going technical details about the project, MTN Chief Technical Officer, Mrs Lynda Saint-Nwafor noted that the modernization and swap-out exercise would affect all aspects of the network, from radio to transmission and core network adding that all legacy equipment installed by the GSM operator for an upward of 10 years will be phased out and be replaced with state-of-the-art equipment coming with much better capacity and flexibility.

In line with the modernization exercise, MTN would be swapping existing power systems at most of the sites with environment-friendly hybrid power systems and expects additional 2000 cell sites to come on stream, bringing it to a total of 4000 sites on hybrid power system by the end of the year.

Furthermore, as part of the massive project, the CTO disclosed that about 3000 of its base transceiver stations across the country will be optimised and that a contract for the implementation of this had been signed with Ericsson, a well known telecoms solutions provider. “At the end of the exercise, the BTS will operate at peak performance, significantly improving customer experience on the network”, she added.