If only Nigeria was managed like the GSM companies

August was Nigeria’s seventh anniversary of when the GSM mobile phone became a part of our national life. October is when we remember the 48th year that political independence came from the British. But, somehow, it appears the GSM mobile phone has made more progress socially and economically in seven years than the 48 years of its host country, Nigeria.

In seven years, the GSM phone has altered for good the social and economical lives of Nigerians; it has brought much economic benefits to its private sector promoters and has ushered in a brand new world in spite of the challenges that underscore doing business in a politically troubled state where infrastructures are either lacking or in decay.

If GSM enterprises were constituents of Nigeria’s 36 states and telecom CEOs where states’ governors, we would be living in a prosperous political space where you could tell where the corporate entities are headed by simply looking at the vision and goals of the enterprises and the people in position of leadership.

The success of GSM companies is a poignant reminder of how blessed we are in terms of a big economic market and how also unblessed we have been in terms of political leadership and the management of our national economic life.

And the tragedy is that the success of the GSM revolution could have been greater in terms of reach and impact but for the constraints of our national life, our failings.

When subscribers complain of poor phone services -- faltering voice calls and disappearing SMS -- they are, in the deeper sense of our national reality, expressing their pains over our failed infrastructures and failed national leadership.

If Etisalat is a super mobile operator in the Middle East, it is because it is operating in an environment of successful political leadership that has invested both money and vision in building a "robust infrastructure" society. In Nigeria, Etisalat will contend with all the problems that MTN, Zain and Glo have put up with and, like the others before it, discover a rich market with an impoverished national leadership.

Etisalat will discover that it has been seven years of triumph for GSM enterprises but 48 years of disillusionment for the Nigerian state. It would have to spend more on what the state ought to have provided as part of its social contract with its citizens. Like many other individuals and corporate entities, the mobile telco will come to see itself as a mini local government council that must build its own roads, provide its own water source, generate its own power and provide its own security for its staff (citizens) and equipment.

As we reflect this October on our national life, we should be able to ask ourselves the same question Nigeria’s famous novelist Chinua Achebe raises in one of his notable essays: “Where did the rain begin to beat us?” Fifty-four million GSM subscribers in seven years speaks of success and points to the greater gains still unharvested in a liberalized telecom sector. But it also speaks of how we have been battered and drenched by wrong policy frameworks -- why GSM services are run by electricity generators imported from China and Europe, why the Internet has remained slow and expensive, why computers are still in the hands of a few Nigerians, and why ICT is still a mirage, somehow, despite 48 years of political independence.

A guide to regulating in an under-infrastructure telecom market

Perhaps no regulator in Africa has had to put up with so many controversies within the sector as the Nigerian regulator, the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC). Often praised for its charismatic approach to handling regulatory issues, the telecom regulator has also had to contend with fiery debates over its capacity to manage the GSM companies in the area of provision of good quality service.

The Nigerian GSM market is as notorious for bad service as it is famous for its revolutionary growth. Most subscribers move around with two GSM phones for two GSM networks as a way of maintaining constant connection. It is assumed that if one network goes gaga, the other would remain sane. Several times, all the operators simply go gaga. Ask anyone who uses three GSM handsets for the three GSM networks. I happen to be in that ridiculous league.

Hemmed in between meeting the expectations of consumers for good service and operators weakened by parlous support infrastructures, the regulator is routinely faced with the dilemma of how to address the challenge of poor quality of service in an under-infrastructure economy.

The NCC responses have ranged from sanctioning the telecom operators by forcing them to pay compensation to consumers to instituting the Consumers Parliament as a way of getting consumers enlightened on their rights as phone subscribers. But the problem has remained in spite of these efforts because the disease itself has not been attacked. Only the symptoms have been repeatedly suppressed, much the same you provide temporary relief for malaria with an analgesic without using malaria drugs. And the disease is this: poor backbone infrastructure because government failed to invest in building a robust backbone.

It is only to be expected that current private sector initiatives at building backbones -- which the government failed to provide in more than six decades of delivering telephone services through its now moribund state-owned telephone company, Nitel -- would begin to impact on the sector soon.

For now, if you want to hear some hard truth from the regulator, here’s one: "A 100 percent quality of service is not entirely possible within the environment we find ourselves in Nigeria if the obvious must be stated."

Nigeria’s telecom explosion has not come without a price. The industry’s aches are as (in?)famous as the stupendous achievements of 54 million phones in seven years to make the country one of the fastest growing telephone markets and to be in the forefront of countries that have helped to reposition Africa’s teledensity score.

But the aches -- poor quality of service (QoS) including disappearing SMS, dropped calls and over-billing -- have taken the loudest tone, often threatening to bury the commonsensical approach of the regulator to policing the sector.

Consumers justifiably ask for good service, but they get network glitches and operators’ excuses. The regulator wants premium QoS, but it gets lower than the benchmark quality from the motley crowd of operators in an under-infrastructure environment. Network owners seek to give good services, but a mix of factors connives to deny them the goal of delivering good service. And everyone is frustrated, and everyone knows why everyone is frustrated. It is the stifling environment that kills the best of intention because you don’t make an omelet with weak flames.

But, in between, the regulator tries to find a way: carve a meeting ground to determine the limit of environmental limitations on service delivery. The result? An ingenious solution at compensating subscribers who have suffered losses in terms of disappeared call minutes and SMS. Operators are ordered to pay back subscribers to specific amount of talk units as deemed appropriate by the regulator. It is far from being Utopian, but it helps assuage pains of loss and create a unique sense of justice in an environment where decades of neglect have left the telecom sector in rust and void.

At 7, Nigeria telecom sector has certainly come a long way, and it has taking the regulator and other stakeholders some level of original thinking to address some of the tough challenges to create a "win-win" situation for all participants and to thicken the marketplace confidence needed to enter the next level of growth. If you ask me, I think the NCC’s approach could serve as a guide to regulating in an under-infrastructure telecom market. Perhaps, that explains why it is increasingly becoming some sort of hub for regulatory counseling to several other African countries, including The Gambia, Sierra Leone and a host of others.