Right-of-way: Nigerian govt, Lagos, telcos strike deal:

The Federal Ministry of Communications Technology has ended the stand-off between the Lagos State government and the telcos, acting under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).

The deal will remove all the constraints to installation, rollout and deployment of base transmission stations (BTS) and fibre optic cable (OFC) in the state.the telcos, acting under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).

The Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson and the Governor of Lagos State Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) with some officials of ALTON struck a deal to end the long standing feud existing between them over spurious charges, levies, multiple taxation, harassment and forceful closure of BTS.

After a closed door meeting at the State House over the weekend, the issues of multiple taxes, levies, decommissioned BTS and Right of Way (RoW) fees, factors which the operators say have been mitigating against quality of service in the state addressed dispassionately.

Also in attendance at the meeting were Commissioner of Science and Technology, Mr Biyi Mabadeje, Commissioner of Works, Mr Obafemi Hamzat and officials from Etisalat, Main One, MTN and Globacom.

According to a statement signed by the Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister, Efem Nkanga, ATCON members expressed concerns over the issue of decommissioned sites and others, arguing that these issues were making it difficult for operators to rollout the much needed ICT infrastructure in Lagos state.

Govt, Lagos, telcos strike deal:

The Federal Ministry of Communications Technology has ended the stand-off between the Lagos State government and the telcos, acting under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).

 The deal will remove all the constraints to installation, rollout and deployment of base transmission stations (BTS) and fibre optic cable (OFC) in the state.

The Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson and the Governor of Lagos State Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) with some officials of ALTON struck a deal to end the long standing feud existing between them over spurious charges, levies, multiple taxation, harassment and forceful closure of BTS.

After a closed door meeting at the State House over the weekend, the issues of multiple taxes, levies, decommissioned BTS and Right of Way (RoW) fees, factors which the operators say have been mitigating against quality of service in the state addressed dispassionately.

Also in attendance at the meeting were Commissioner of Science and Technology, Mr Biyi Mabadeje, Commissioner of Works, Mr Obafemi Hamzat and officials from Etisalat, Main One, MTN and Globacom.

According to a statement signed by the Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister, Efem Nkanga, ATCON members expressed concerns over the issue of decommissioned sites and others, arguing that these issues were making it difficult for operators to rollout the much needed ICT infrastructure in Lagos state.

In his response, Governor Fashola said infrastructure rollout and deployment was in the best interest of residents of Lagos State, adding that it is not the wish of the state to prevent operators from rolling out.

Governors ‘compound poor telecoms services’:

The governors of the 36 states of the federation have been accused of deliberately frustrating the roll-out of telecoms infrastructure which would have tremendously improved the services provided by telecoms operators.

According to sources close to both the operators and regulator, the governors put all manner of stumbling blocks on the way of operators, making spurious financial demands.

According to a source close to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the charges demanded by the governors are usually outrageous and a huge source of disincentive to roll out.

He said: “But essentially, the challenge we have is that of quality of service. Quality of service is basically infrastructure challenge, it’s a capacity challenge. “That is implies that the capacity, the infrastructure, cannot cope with the demand and supply equation. The supply side is infrastructure which is not keeping pace with the demand of the consumer.

“There are some things that we have identified as reasons for this. There is bottleneck in infrastructure and the issue of multiple taxations. The second one is vandalism; the third one is the issue of right of way. At the Federal Government level, there is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the ComTech Ministry and Ministry of Works that for all federal highways, they have agreed to dig once and for all. They have also agreed that anywhere road infrastructure is going to be built from the time that MoU is signed there will be provision so that people don’t go digging.”

According to him, the problem is more escalated at the state and local government levels where all manners of charges are imposed on operators for citing base transmission stations (BTS).

“But in the states, we are having problem and the reason for that is that the governors have said that they build roads and service providers come and damage the roads, destroy their infrastructure. So because of that, they have to put something down so that when they dig, there will be something to fix the damaged road infrastructure,” he added.

Another source close to the operators said efforts to get the governors to justify the charges have always proved abortive.