‘New NITEL’ targets 50m 4G subscribers

WITH a commitment of $1 billion on roll out and expansion in the next five years by NATCOM Consortium, new owners of Nigeria Telecommunications Limited, which has been rebranded to ntel, the firm is optimistic of propelling over 50 million 4G subscribers in the country by 2020.

To achieve this, the Chief Executive Officer, ntel, Kamar Abass, said the new telecommunications outfit will help build critical mass with its pure play 4G LTE network propagated on Goldilock system with speeds of up to 240 mbps.

Abass disclosed this in Lagos, at the weekend, when the firm hosted the delegation of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON).

According to him, many people believed that the Nigerian telecommunications industry has witnessed a transformation in the past 15 years, but ntel is coming with a new revolution.

“Many people believe that the Nigerian telecoms industry has witnessed a transformation in the past 15 years. With ntel coming on stream this year, I believe we are about to witness a new revolution”, he stated.

The seven-man ATCON delegation led by their President, Lanre Ajayi, was to appraise ntel’s readiness for launch, introduce the association to ntel and establish a symbiotic relationship with the new entrant.

The meeting was auspicious, coming as it did, just one week after ntel and its parent company, Natcom Investment and Development Company made an appearance before the House of Representatives Committees on Communications and Privatization/Commercialization.

During the appearance, Chairman of NATCOM, Olatunde Ayeni, who said his company, was committing $1 billion to roll out and expansion in the first five years also added that the network will be launching full commercial operations by March 2016 in three major cities; Abuja, Port Harcourt and Lagos and providing direct and indirect employment to over 4,000 Nigerians.

Welcoming ATCON delegation, Abass stressed, “ntel is leading a revolution in the Nigerian telecoms space. We have seen subscriber numbers rise to 152 million in 15 years and statistics from OVUM and GSMA indicate that the numbers will grow to about 222 million by 2020. Ntel will help fuel that growth but we are looking at leading a transformation around broadband.”

Abass, who is an advocate of abundant broadband and the possibilities thereof added, “Data enables all sorts of basic applications and what we see shows that the broadband wave is coming. 2G has reached a plateau and even though we are seeing about 120 million 2G subscribers compared to under one million 4G subscribers today, that number will fall to about 23 million 2G subscribers by 2020 with 4G subscribers rising to above 50 million. ntel will help build that critical mass with our pure play 4G LTE network propagated on our Goldilock system with speeds of up to 240 mbps.”

In his response, Ajayi, an engineer, who said ATCON is seeking ntel’s membership in order to “assist us in policy formulation and advocacy” also added that “the industry is excited with ntel’s imminent entry especially because ntel’s is not focusing on making money but on developing and building capacity in the industry.”

NATCOM is the consortium that acquired the assets of NITEL/MTel in a guided liquidation process, which was overseen by the Bureau of Public Enterprises and National Council on Privatisation. The company which will trade under the ntel brand name, plans to offer Nigerian subscribers value driven superfast broadband Internet services in alignment with the Federal Government’s plan for a five fold broadband increase by 2018.

ntel said it will launch a pure play 4G LTE mobile service that will offer high speed data, high-definition voice and video on demand.