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A cursory overview of the deregulated Nigerian telecommunications sector has revealed that great opportunities abound for investors to come up with new products and services. The sheer size of the Nigerian population (100 Million) and the great strides being made in the economic field as well as the prospects of providing these services with the assured profitability characteristic of
telecommunications investments are current factors that have instilled some confidence in the entrepreneur in the Nigerian telecommunications environment.
5.2.4 Coping with Inter-connectivity Issues and Competition in Telecommunications Regulation
Telecommunications, the art and science of information transmission and circulation earlier regarded as a minor component of infrastructure, became in the 1980s a strategic factor of development at all levels, from individual firms to regions and countries. It is the principal factor in National, Regional and International integration. By eliminating distance, telecommunications bring together all kinds of partners, saving time and resources, which are valuable factors in economic development and
economic and social integration. Capitals and large cities around the world are linked by
telecommunications and information networks covering almost all aspects of business, commerce, education, news, entertainment, etc.
Through telecommunications which is regarded as the medium which replaces the physical movement of people across distances, the world has become smaller than at any time in the past and it is even getting smaller and smaller for the benefit and enhancement of world peace. Indeed, communications, financial transactions and trade, as well as a large share of the manufacturing sector, could come to a virtual standstill without telecommunications.
Telecommunications is at the fore front of current economic and social affairs. The digitalization of networks globally has further destroyed the boundaries which separated them from the fields of electronics and computing. The resultant multiplication of tele-services and their increasing
sophistication have exploded the technical and commercial limitations which previously existed. The evolution has been decisive and here in Nigeria, has followed from technical facts and not political will.
Today, the challenge of meeting the large and rising demand is being met by moving toward a sector structure that is plural and competitive, with a mix of service providers - private and public, using various technologies and offering services tailored to different user needs.
Propelled mainly by current technological advances, the telecommunications arena in Nigeria has started to undergo profound structural changes, giving rise to cheaper and more reliable
telecommunications equipment and services on the one hand, and on the other, a whole new range of services. Public telecommunications is moving rapidly from protected national markets with huge cross-subsidies between certain services to global competitive markets. Public Telecommunications Operators (PTOs) are now responding to this liberalization challenge by becoming corporatized and in some cases also privatized. In order to respond to global competition, joint ventures and other forms of alliances are increasingly being established between the major PTOs and equipment manufacturers. New operators are also being established focusing in particular on
telecommunications growth areas such as integrated telecommunications services for multinational companies, international telephony and mobile telephony.
6. Structural Balance of Information: Communication Engineering through Policy (Infostructure)
For any development process, it is vital to have horizontal information channels that activate all sectors of the population and facilitate access to decision-making for otherwise excluded sectors.
An equally eloquent expression of the same point was made in the "Report on Means of Enabling Active Participation in the Communication Process and Analysis of the Right to Communicate", presented at the nineteenth Unesco General Conference at Nairobi in 1976. It reads:
In the past, the role of communication in society was seen essentially as to inform and influence people. It is now being proposed that communication should be understood as a process of social intercourse through a balanced exchange of information and experience...
This shift in perception implies the predominance of dialogue over monologues. This aim is to achieve a system of horizontal communication based upon equitable distribution of resources and facilities enabling all persons to send as well as to receive messages.
This new perspective of the role of communication in society was indeed acknowledged and applauded by the participants at the Intergovernmental Conference on Communication Policies in Africa when they asserted that the people of the rural communities should no longer be regarded as mere listeners but rather as actual 'animators', creators of news and participants both in the process of producing information and in programmes for their society. In other words, the time is past when the masses of the people should only be communicated at. It is time to start thinking of
communicating with them.
However, in spite of the above, the communication system of most Third World countries is heavily biased in favour of the urban elite. The urban elite monopolises the available information, which makes the information flow vertical, skewed, and not calculated to ensure participation of the majority of the population. There is, in other words, differential access to information which has resulted in apathy and the alienation of a very large proportion of the citizens of these countries. For authentic national development to take place, there is therefore the need to alter the pattern in favour of a system which stresses lateral, two-way communication.
6.1 On-going and Proposed Developments and Support Initiatives
NITEL is now being configured for a joint-venture ownership of a number of privately-owned facilities. For example, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) optical fibre telecommunications network (Figure 2) is being considered for a joint-venture ownership by the NNPC and members of the Public with additional transmission links (radio and optical cable) to raise access for the international service.
Already, the NNPC optical fibre network has offered a stiff competition to NITEL in the provision of high-speed leased lines and digital telephone service on certain routes while the cellular telephone network has offered a stiff competition to NITEL's domestic telephone service.
The opportunities for the early growth of VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminals) in satellite communications via the NCC-controlled space segments, is another factor which, when fully operational, will accelerate the development of Domestic Operators and User Networks in Nigeria.
VSAT is fully deregulated in Australia, Japan and the US, and is also been gradually deregulated here in Nigeria.
7. Telecommunications & Information Technology Needs and Priorities in Nigeria
7.1 An Analysis of the Problems of Telecommunication Development
Telegraph service was opened in Lagos on September 2nd, 1886. In spite of what appeared to be an early start, the development of telecommunication service in the country has been slow. Up until the 50's for example, government and large business concerns were the primary users of telephone services, they were probably the only users who could afford the service as the per capital gross national product was then rather low.
With the advent of the oil boom in the 70's, however, the economic situation changed and this was followed by a dramatic increase in demand for telephone service. As the installed telecommunication infrastructure could not cope with the rising demand, the quality of service began to deteriorate. To arrest the worsening situation, the Federal government took significant measures in the 3rd and 4th national development plans (1975-1985) by allocating a total of about 5.5 billion for the
modernisation and expansion of public telecommunication service. These measures were designed to increase the number of installed telephone lines by more than ten-fold in the ten year period.
However, as the world we live in is a world of innovations in different facets of life, the technological giant leaps of this last decade of the twentieth century call for new and innovative approaches to modern management methods in the telecommunication industry. There is no way the traditional monopolistic system of the telecommunication industry can survive the 21st century in view of the rapidly changing telecommunication environment. The way out is for all countries to accept that changes must of necessity come and therefore find ways of addressing pertinent issues at a convenient and reasonable pace, relative to each nation's condition, so that when it eventually comes, no nation will be caught unawares. The I.T.U's Telecom '95 Exhibitions with the Technology and Strategic Summits of the associated Forum series, clearly testified to this statement. At this forum, Information Technology which utilizes computers, telecommunications, video, reprographic and many micrographic equipment were put on display to offer diverse solutions to developing countries.
This integration of data, voice and image, together with flexible communications networks, means that a variety of technology applications are now available.
It is essential, nonetheless, that Information Technology should be adequately managed. Nations are becoming aware of the need to manage information in the planned way that they manage other key resources. Information Technology must be well integrated into the overall management structure of a nation and we haven't achieved this yet in Nigeria. This will soon be achieved through the National Telecommunications Policy now being finalised.
In terms of computers and computer applications, the evolution of information Technology is very rapid. Hardware costs are falling (even here in Nigeria) and its power is increasing. User-friendly interfaces and new software are also bringing technology closer to end-useri, significantly modifying the technical specialist role. For telecommunications, the application of wirtless technology has also brought into focus faster and cheaper extension of service to the end user.
7.2 The Information and Communications Environment (Infrastructure and Infostructure)
That the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria attaches great importance to
telecommunications industry in the country because of its potential in pronuting the commercial, industrial, socio-economic as well as political development and unity of Nigeria cannot be overemphasized. In addition, the government fully supports the need to mee the customers and business demands for good quality telecommunications services, reduced tine for telephone installation and service delivery, diversification and complexity of users neels, advances in
technology, demand for improved business efficiency in the face of tight buigets, cost reductions and competitiveness as well as the trend world over.