$15bn Required To Fix GSM Service Problems – CELTEL

20th JULY 2007

By Leon Usigbe & Tordue Salem

Cell Telecommunications Ltd (CELTEL) a Global Systems Mobile telecommunications (GSM) company, declared yesterday that to fix the epileptic service in mobile telephony in Nigeria, the GSM companies would require an investment of $15 billion in infrastructure.

The House of Representatives through a motion sponsored by Mr. Fancy Hakeem Arole (Lagos AC), had set up an ad hoc committee headed by Mr. Leo Okuwe Ogor (Isoko Delta PDP) to probe the reasons why Nigerians wont enjoy efficient GSM services since the  advent of GSM telephony in Nigeria in 2001.

CELTEL made the declaration through one of its senior staff, Mr. Nwoko Osondu during a 2-day public hearing “on the gradual decay of services provided by GSM Companies” held at the National Assembly Complex on Wednesday.

 CELTEL in its presentation, said “$15b would be required for all the GSM service providers to be effective.” That amount, he said “would enable the service providers to put infrastructure in place that would meet world standards, and it would also allow them to find alternative sources for power generation.”

Some of the reasons bedeviling mobile services in Nigeria, Nwoko said were epilepsy in power supply, infrastructural inadequacies (like roads, water, etc), loss of manpower, multiple-taxation and the high cost of diesel.

“There is a paucity of capacity from NCC (as regards its work to regulate networks), then on account of this, we have engaged in self-generation of capacity. But then there is also the cost of the installation of the fibre cables we are providing.
 “We have been operating with 25KVA generators since 2001, what is consumed daily by the network is 200,000 litres of diesel daily and 76million litres of diesel is consumed annually by these generators".

 Source: Vanguard

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