ALTON berates NCAA over threat on aviation height clearance

Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has urged Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to discontinue its harassment of telecom companies over the Aviation Height Clearance claims as the telecom masts are national critical infrastructure.

Adebayo stated this at the 10th anniversary of the Beacon of Information and Communications Technology (BoICT) Awards held over the weekend in Lagos.

According to him, ‘Nigeria ought to have invested in telecom infrastructure but due to failures in the past to do that, foreign investors were made to understand that the environment was conducive for investment.

So, turning around to threaten that 7000 telecom masts will be demolish makes rubbish of the Ease of Doing Business agenda of the federal government in the country’.

He said that the Office of the Vice President should as a matter of urgency convey stakeholders meeting to unravel why NCAA and other agencies, including States and Local Government are hell-bent on thwarting the effort of the telecommunication companies to provide essential services to the country.

He urged NCAA to understand that switching off a telecom base station has serious national security implications hence dialogue should be the way out.

He added that telecom operators are suffering due to multifaceted taxes and other unhealthy situations they face and should be encouraged to continue to invest in the economy.

In his keynote speech, Mr. Pravin Kumar, Group CEO of iSON Group said that ICT industry should not relent in the pursuit of excellence service delivery.

According to him, the emphasis should be now be on the emerging technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cryptocurrency and others which the society must be exposed to the importance in order to brace up for the future.

He added that the country must be prepared as 5G technology is almost available hence the need for deliberate effort to support the industry by the government for more investments on infrastructure to drive telecommunications of the future.

He said that iSON BPO understands the importance of customer-centric business which informed it investments in customer service and other platforms to support players in the industry achieve their goals.