David Venn the
Chief Executive Officer of Spectranet Nigeria, a provider of 4G/LTE technology
and broadband service provider in the country, has weighed in on the seeming
stagnancy currently being recorded in the telecommunications sector of the
country. Speaking recently to Guardian newspapers, Mr. Venn explained that with
almost 100 million Internet users in Nigeria, only about 95 percent are using
even 3G with very few operators operating 4G.
In his words,
“Spectranet initial investment was in 2009 with the licensing, and the 4G-LTE
wasn’t available then, so the company launched with an earlier technology. As
soon as LTE was available, we got it swapped with 4G-LTE Technology. So 4G-LTE
has only been around here with Spectranet for about three to four years. So
that is what we have here, we don’t have the old technology”. And that is when
the growth really started, because 4G drive much faster and better experience
for the customer. And it is more affordable too; the technology is more
efficient in the way it uses the spectrum to get more data.”
Because the
investments within that period was quite low, he could not talk about numbers
but hinted that it is in hundreds of millions of dollars that have been
invested. “All these equipment, and the modems as well, mostly the network
equipment all come from overseas, because there is only a certain number of
suppliers around the world that make these equipment. They are extremely
sophisticated equipment; none of them is made in Nigeria, it’s all imported.
All of that is in dollars and there’s been a huge investment in all that. We
have spent a bit more in the past couple of years in rolling out, in marketing
and in trying to get our name out there, but most of the investment is going to
equipment and network infrastructure”.
While explaining
the major reasons for the low internet penetration in the country, the
Spectranet boss opined: “Let me start from 3G. It was designed as a voice
network with good data. You make most of your money out of voice calls. They
don’t make much money out of data. It is not because data is not used very
much, but because per megabit of voice phone call, they make about 100 times
more revenue from voice calls than they will make for data. This is because
data is quite cheap based on network capacity.
This is one of
the reasons why the mobile operators don’t really want data everywhere. Because
if there’s data everywhere, most people will start using WhatsApp and Skype,
they will stop using the voice networks, they will stop paying for voice calls.
I see in Nigeria that in the next couple of years, maybe two or three years, no
one is going to pay for calls, they’ll just be buying data bundles, that is
what is happening in Europe now. In United Kingdom (UK), I have five SIM cards
on one network, and they are all one account with 10 Gigabyte plan. I pay a
certain amount for that and they are all shared. All the phone calls and SMS are
free, unlimited”.
He added that,
the current data revolution is changing a lot of things. A lot of people now
watch video, entertainment via Internet streaming, much more than they used to.
“Two years ago, if someone sent you a Facebook message with a video with it,
you delete it straightaway, because you don’t want it to consume your data
bundle. But now it starts playing automatically, and people watch it. People
now watch more videos, and YouTube. You get a lot more content. And that’s a
major change in the past two years in Nigeria” he concluded.
Describing the
huge investment needed to offer telecom services in Nigeria, he added that,
“People are quite often surprised by how many towers it takes to service a
city. In Lagos alone, we have 400 towers. We have over 600 towers across the
four cities. Lagos is more spread out. And you provide towers not just for
coverage, but for capacity. So most of the investments we spent in the past
year have really been to enhance the capacity of the network, because the
coverage was already there. But as the tower starts to get busy, we need to put
more towers to take up the capacity, so that you can support the customers.
Because you can just get so many customers on the tower before it starts
getting congested. We install new base stations all the time”.
On his feelings
towards the pricing of data services, Mr. Venn said: “The actual cost of data
at the moment is too low. The problem is that the GSM operators have been
competing on price for data, and they are taking the data way down below the
cost of provision. And they are complaining that WhatsApp shouldn’t be allowed
because it is eating into their voice revenue. That is because they are
charging too low for data. And the problem is that when the data charge is too
low, no one is going to invest in rolling out more networks for data”.
In a clear
demonstration of Spectranet 4G’s seriousness in the Nigerian market, the
company has also introduced a new promotional offer tagged full speed unlimited
gold plan into its range of data plans for subscribers to enjoy. The CEO, David
Venn, disclosed that the introduction of the unlimited plan is aimed at meeting
the ever growing demand by subscribers for more data to consume as they
continue to experience the great service of Spectranet. “We decided to provide
what the subscribers want as a listening and caring brand” he said.
The unlimited
data plan, according to him, is at a price of Eighteen Thousand Naira (N18,000)
for a one month subscription that’ll provide users with unlimited upload and
download without worries or fear of poor connection. The Unlimited Gold plan is
designed for heavy data users that live an active lifestyle and who want to
stay connected for a whole month to accomplish all their business and personal
tasks.
“As you are
aware, we take our rollover policy very seriously. All our existing customers who migrate to
this plan will have their unused data warehoused in their account and this will
be credited back to them should they choose to return to their existing capped
plan” he said.
Aside the full
speed unlimited Gold plan, we are also introducing a Unified Value Plan of 40GB
for N12,500 only. As part of our effort
to ensure that more people have access to the affordable quality internet
service of Spectranet.
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