Leading investors and pundits in Nigeria’s data market have again, called on the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to as a matter of urgency review the nation’s data price floor to drive investments and Quality of Service (QoS).
Driving the campaign at a recent BusinessDay Broadband Summit in Lagos is the chief executive officer of Spectranet, Nigeria’s leading 4G LTE service providers, Mr. David Venn.
In his submission, he said “we need sanity and a data floor because there is a lot of anti-competitive behaviour in the market.”
Venn pointed out that “Quality of Service has fallen in the past 6 months because of Nigeria’s huge data hunger.”
He revealed that currently, Tier II telecom companies are just offering unlimited packages in a bid to stay ahead of competition.
He averred further that Tier 1 companies are surviving the heat of below profit business because they are recouping huge revenues from voice services which Tier II in the same data market segment do not have.
Corroborating Venn’s submission, Kamar Abass, CEO ntel, made it clearer that “Increasing the data price floor ensures that operators can provide better services. It also ensures that they can get adequate returns on investments.”
Both Venn and Abass views were further boosted by the presentation of Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, President of Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators (ALTON) who averred that “we need to revisit the issue of data price floor especially now that we are talking about broadband for all because there is a minimum price a telecoms must charge in order to stay in business. Where are the old players & ISPs?”
According to him, over 21 ISPs and pioneer Tier II CDMA operators had gone out of business because of the capital-intensive nature of the industry, predatory pricing by bigger operators and lack of commensurate returns on investment.
Still yet, Tenu Awoonor, Director Strategy and performance Management at Airtel, said there is a misconception which must be corrected; “reinstating the data price floor will not necessarily make broadband more expensive, rather it will help with penetration. We need better pricing to help ensure that operators stay afloat.”
