Fixed line telephony’s usage rate falls by 49%

THE last one year has further shown a sustained downward profile regarding fixed wired/wireless telephony usage in Nigeria, with the market currently witnessing a complete dominance of GSM players.

While the mobile arm has witnessed tremendous growth, with the GSM technology controlling 98.37 per cent market share, the fixed telephony battle fiercely to increase its 0.13 per cent market share in the country.

The Guardian checks showed that between February 2014 and same period this year, the fixed wired/wireless telephone use in Nigeria went down by 49 per cent.

Indeed, as at February 2014, the segment connected 2, 238, 458 lines with only 357, 612 of it been active, but by February 2015, according to statistics from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) fixed telephony operators were left with 183, 270 active lines, which may further dip.

Although, this steep fall in the usage of fixed telephony appears not to be limited to Nigeria alone, however, reports have it that in other part of Africa, such as South Africa, Kenya and others, where adoptions have been low as well, both government and private players are engaging one another to revive its fortunes, which is still missing in Nigeria.

For instance, South Africa’s Telkom – Africa’s largest fixed-line telephone group – is developing a turnaround strategy to transform itself into a profitable and sustainable business that will be able to support economic development of the continent’s second biggest economy.

Report has it that as at March 31, 2014, Telkom South Africa had a paltry 3.6-million telephone access lines, reflecting a 4.8 per cent drop compared to 3.8-million in 2013.

Zambia’s Zamtel is still a monopolist operator as far as retail fixed-line telephony is concerned. Other operators struggle as they fail to fend off fixed-mobile substitution.

Though, there have been arguments and counter arguments, especially in Nigeria, about the survival of fixed telephony looking at the firm grip of the GSM technology on the telecommunications sector, industry analysts believed that fixed line is extremely crucial to Nigeria’s 30 per cent broadband target by 2018.

As such, with the completion of payment for Nigeria’s Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) by NATCOMs Consortium in the planned guided liquidation by the Federal Government, hopes are high that fixed telephony in the country may experience a leap.

According to the President of the Association of Telecommunications Company of Nigeria (ATCON) Lanre Ajayi, at the weekend, the come back of NITEL will surely increase the capacity of the national network in the country, which we believe will result in service quality.

Ajayi, an engineer believed NITEL has the opportunity to venture into the process of resuscitating landline network, which has almost been relegated to the background by the mobile telephony. He said: “NITEL has robust infrastructure for landline, which the new owners now have inherited. These include ample Right of Way (RoW), the manholes, the cables and the ducts.”

President of the National Association Telecoms Consumers Association (NATCOMS), a consumer rights group, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, who commended the new NITEL buyer for coming on board as another telecoms operator, said: “As a national carrier, we expect to see the return of landline. I expect the return of the landline calls to Nigerians. Usually, anywhere in the world, landline is always almost 40 per cent cheaper than the normal mobile lines that all of us are not used to in Nigeria.

Dobek Pater, a telecoms analyst at Africa Analysis, was quoted by CBNC Africa, as saying that fixed telephony still has great future despite the dominance of GSM.

“Yes, too far early and an obituary may never be written. Everyone needs fixed (wire) line”, he stated.

According to him, wire-line businesses seem to be more fashionable now – even large mobile operators are becoming fixed line operators themselves – they have begun to follow a dual strategy, mobile and fixed.

He disclosed that mobile phone operator Vodacom – which is owned by British giant Vodafone – is in the process of buying South Africa’s second largest fixed line business Neotel for 7-billion rand to provide a wide range of business and consumer services like fibre-to-the-business and fibre-to-the-home.

MTN South Africa is in talks with Telkom South Africa to extend their existing roaming agreement to include bilateral roaming and outsourcing of Telkom’s radio access network.

A rather interesting twist is that fixed-line operators still have a business case.

Pater explained: “Fixed-line is essential for business (access networks) and for national and metro networks. However future growth of fixed will be limited. We are likely to see more fibre deployment in the fixed-line network. On national and metro routes this has already been taking place in most African markets.

“Fixed fibre networks are essential for backhauling and transmitting of traffic, which is increasingly data (not switched circuit voice) and growing. Fibre is also essential for mobile data backhaul, that is, fibre-to-the-site.”