MTN, Huawei Seal Rural Telephony Deal in Nigeria

MTN Nigeria and Huawei Technologies has sealed a rural telephony deal that will see no fewer than 500 rural communities across the length and breadth of Nigeria connected to telephone lines.

Speaking at the agreement signing ceremony in Lagos, Ahmad Farroukh, CEO, MTN Nigeria said as the industry market leader, it realised that majority of the people in rural areas of the country did not have access to telephony services, adding that to get to this large unserved people with its conventional business model would not create the necessary opportunities for rural access and services.

“As the industry market, we realised that majority of the people in our rural areas do not have access to telephony services. We also realised that to get to these uncovered areas with our conventional business model would not create the necessary opportunities for rural access abd services,” he said, adding that this realisation led to the need to design a new business model that would enable the telko enrich the lives of the rural dwellers in the country.

“We now have a sustainable model that would enable us provide GSM services to rural communities and villages that do not have any network coverage,” Farroukh added.

“Our goal is to cover every village in Nigeria. The first phase will see 350 villages covered before tha end of May 2011 via the support of our strategic partner, Huawei Technologies, while 500 villages will be covered in phase 2 before the end of December 2011,”he explained concerning the scope and vision of the project.

Speaking on the occasion, Olawale Ige, a member of the board of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), commended the bold move of MTN in the area of rural telephony which he said has been an issue with the Nigerian government about a century ago.

He blamed the hitherto monopolistic nature of the sector for the inability of the project to come on stream, adding that with the liberalisation of the telecoms sector and advent of digital telecommunications, the project was gradually seeing the light of day.

He identified huge cost of the project and the rate of obsolescence of the technology as the factors that also draw back the realisation of the project.