Connectnigeria Articles

It was a great time with the momo community on Monday 30th September, between 6pm and 8pm.

We had folks from Google Nigeria, Konga, Iroko, Lagos Business school, a few others and of course, Dalberg who provided the report on which the conversation that Night was based. State of the internet in Nigeria.

Summary:

* We have a long way to go

* We have also come a long way

Insights from the reports show we have a good connection link with the rest of the world. Main One, a major wholesale internet service provider, delivers connectivity across West Africa, and even powers some of the telcos. Glo-1 also feeds in from the United Kingdom.

So what, then, is the issue?

Service Delivery is it. The last mile delivery of internet service is where things get muddled up. Beyond speed and the quality of service, cost is a major issue; cost on both ends: service provider and customers.

I was expecting to see one of the players in the ISP space on the panel, but there was no representative. Though we may consider the presence of Mobitel, in the person of Mr. Chairman, but he was not on the panel. So what we did that day was to talk about the impact of the internet in Nigeria, without having someone from the ISP companies involved in the conversation. Yeah; a bit off, but it still went down very good since we had very informed minds on the panel.

A few points that were raised that day All the panelists, about a dozen, spoke on the issue of the impact of the internet in Nigeria from their perspectives, but I caught a few points. Here they are: Mrs. David-West, from the Lagos Business School, gave a grand opening by speaking on some business principles that technology persons often fail to recognise: Business is not charity; the ISP business isn’t charity either. Simdul Shagaya, Chief Executive Officer of Konga, noted that the government should help drive impact by laying fiber optic cables on all major roads in Lagos.

Titi from Google Nigeria made some very valid points as well; points on government’s role, policy and similar things which I might revolve around a bit, and the obvious truth is the government has to be involved in this.

A trip down memory lane

Remember the days of per minute billing on the cellular service networks? The telcos at that time were having a field day, charging customers a flat rate of 50NGN for every minute you are on a call. Even when you spend one full minute plus an extra second (61 seconds), it was considered two minutes and the subscriber was so billed.

It took one of the telcos to break the jinx by introducing per second billing, which compelled every cell provider to hop on after the market price plummeted in favour of the consumer.

Call rates went for almost 1Naira per second; about 80 kobo to be precise, which still resulted to almost 50NGN a minute. The advantage was that the subscriber was charged by the second as opposed to rounding up seconds into full minutes. Fair enough.

Eventually, with the efforts of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the governmental body responsible for regulating the telecommunications industry, call rates tended towards what we have today. Before then (i.e the per second billing era and the regulation from NCC ), you would remember “flashing” was a required skill for every mobile phone owner then. You slack for one second and 50NGN was deducted from your account instantly. People would flash rather than speak for 12 – 20 seconds in order to save cost. I think we are still “flashing” data.

You want to see the real impact of the internet? Crash the cost

Let me tell you what “flashing”, in data terms, mean.

* It means turning off images in your browser to save data.

* It means not choosing to display images in emails that contain them.

* It means stopping the browser from completely loading the page once the information you need is shown.

* It means using Opera browser – (Opera is good by the way; only making a point here)

* If you use an Android-based device, you just have to turn off data every now and then, and turn off auto-update of apps. If not, thy data allowance shall be exhausted!

All these behaviours directly affect the impact of the internet, because they limit the experience of using the internet. This trade-off is necessary because people need to save cost. In some cases, people would rather not subscribe to data at all. The service is available, and it is not that bad, but they are just saving the cost of subscription. My point exactly is this:

The NCC/government needs to regulate data service cost just as it has done for mobile telecommunications. They need to give attention to data services from GSM service providers as they seem to be oblivious of the current trends.

100mb worth of data should not translate to 1000NGN on some plans available today.

200mb worth of data should not continue to be valued at 1000NGN if you subscribe to “Pay as you go”.

The harsh operating environment is very well considered. Cost of running base stations for the non-GSM data providers gets to about 300,000 to 500,000 monthly. A bit justifiable, but for the established GSM operators who may provide cell and data service using some shared infrastructures, I don’t think they need to be this high on their billings.

More on crashing the cost

There may be plans on bringing the internet service provision to the same spectrum as television. So if you can get clear TV signals, you should pretty much have a good internet service. What we are not sure of is if it would be analog or digital TV. If analog, then the cost would be greatly reduced. Though it tends to be digital TV – the DSTV kind of service.

Recently, the Alliance for Affordable Internet, AAI, a body set up for enacting the means to cheap and affordable internet service was setup. I’m glad government folks in Africa are getting involved. No private sector ISP would want to be a part of such alliance; it’s just logical.

If it becomes relatively cheap to afford good internet service such that villages can access them and even get better service delivery because of low concentration of people, then impact would be driven. The largest barrier to the impact of the internet at the moment is not the speed nor is it the quality of service, it is the cost of access. So, with the possibility of the NCC enforcing regulation on the providers and partnering with the AAI while they do their thing, and possibly with internet coming to the TV spectrum, let’s cheer to low-cost quality internet service.

See the Dalberg Report here : http://www.impactoftheinternet.com/nigeria.html

Photo Source: momonigeria.org

Ayo Dawodu is a technology startup developer and norm opposer. I’m always looking to improve the economic figures of Africa by helping small businesses exploit technology. I’m an avid fan of Android. Follow me on twitter @tjwizking