Nigeria - MTN Nigeria is to invest in excess of N150 billion ($1 billion) in infrastructure rollout, with more spending on base station rollout in 2011, aimed at ameliorating quality of service on its network. Corporate Services Executive for MTN, Mr. Wale Goodluck who dropped the hint in Lagos at a media parley, said MTN was aware of the drop in quality of service across networks in recent past, but that the company is worried about the problem and is out to improve the situation on its network, hence the need to invest over N150 billion in infrastructure rollout across the country.

He however lamented the attitude of Nigerians in some states, which he said have opposed to the building of base stations in their vicinities.

Citing Abuja as an example, Goodluck said MTN had need to build more base stations in the metropolis and beyond, but regretted that people and some agencies would not allow them do so for selfish reasons.

He admitted the poor quality of service currently hitting Abuja, but blamed it on insufficient base stations, following refusal of people and some authorities in allowing MTN build more base stations in the city.

According to him, the more base stations in any environment, the better the quality of service in such environment.

"The combination of base stations from all telecom networks in the country put together, is below 15, 000, in a country whose population is over 150 million, but in the United Kingdom (UK), total number of base stations put together is over 66, 000, yet the population of UK is below 150 million," Goodluck said.

He said MTN would be investing in metropolitan network that has to do more with fibre, which means better connection and better quality of service for Nigerians.

He assured Nigerians that the West African Cable System, (WACS), the submarine cable project of MTN, running from London to West Africa , would boost fibre capacity in Nigeria, when the cable lands in Nigeria in the next two weeks.

WACS, he said has more capacity than the capacity of the two other sea cables put together that have already landed in the country.

General Manager, Corporate Communications for MTN, Funmi Omogbenigun who was also in attendance at the media parley, said MTN would continue to invest in infrastructure rollout in order to serve its customers better.

He called on aggrieved customers who felt bettered on the billing system on their roaming lines to seek audience with MTN for better clarification.

She maintained that MTN would not bill roaming customers arbitrarily, but would respect the billing system of its partners, whose network, customers enjoy while they are outside the country.

Emma Okonji

Daily Independent/11/03/2011