Telecommunication Technology: Issues and Trends In West Africa

Hello again It is my intention to continue with the problems of communication in Nigeria. Let’s leave the issue of Nicomsat alone for it should be consigned to history. I simply cannot comprehend why a country that cannot boast of six hours of constant electricity and 70% of graduate unemployment, 65% of population below poverty line, etc etc, should be spending such huge sums of money simply on waste, just for the sake of some egoistic impression that Nigeria has joined the league of space science nations. I think that we should be re-examining the mental state of some of our decision makers. The other day the MD of Nicomsat announced that they have invented a web based access control. Hmmmmmmmm. Did you say “invented”? Well a friend of mine told me that the so called announced technology is a 1980 technology. But come to think of it what concerns a satellite development or “inventing” company with a web based access control? Or is it a case of cheap publicity as Bayero Agabi has been...

Nigerian satellite 'lost' “When Nigeria launched the NigComSat-1 into space it was hailed as the country first steps into the space age. The $340m satellite built by the Chinese firm the Great Wall Industry Corporation was launched in Sichuan province in May 2007 and it launch was watched proudly by a delegation from Nigeria including the then Minister of Science and Technology, Professor Turner Isoun. Fast forward to November 2008 and the promises of jobs and development in telecommunications to be brought about from the deployment of the satellite seem to have temporarily gone down a black hole. The drama started off with reports earlier this week that suggested that communication with the satellite was completely lost and fears arose that it might have spun out of its orbit. However by Wednesday a Nigerian government official attributed the problem to a loss of power. Speaking in Abuja the Nigerian capital the Minister of State for Science and Technology Dr Alhassan Zaku des...

The Management Network In continuation of my earlier discuss on communication problems and issues in Nigeria, I conclude this discussion by looking at the side of the network that deals directly with the customer . This side of the network deals directly with customer management or subscriber management. These days a lot of self service portals have been introduced in many mobile networks worldwide. These portals deals with mostly issues of bill query, SIM replacement, prepaid management like recharge matters through scratch card or some e-payment systems. It also include self subscription modules where a subscribe can subscribe to a service via a web interface. But for few networks, most of these self service portals are either non functional or out rightly deficient at best. Most are actually non functional web sites with very little to offer. In one of the big three networks, at the latter part of this year, it was impossible to recharge your phone for close to two weeks running, no...

Hi, It is my intention to do a series on the innefficient communication networks we have in Nigeria and I welcome comments on this. It is over eight years now since the introduction of GSM and other mobile network services in Nigeria, given birth to a number of operators in the industry. While NCC has been largely successful in selling communication licenses to would be operators and existing ones, it has not met with equal success in regulating these kinds and quality of networks being rolled out in Nigeria. This have subjected the industry to a number of speculations and bad and poorly designed networks and equipment flooding the market with the attendant poor quality of services from all the operators and leaving the subscribers to the mercies of these operators whose only goal is profit, profit and moor profit. In these series I will like to pursue the causes of these poor qualities of services in the Nigerian telecom industry and perhaps proffer some solution to these problems. Wh...