ATCON president, Nnanmani reacts to lost 1.65m broadband connections
Engineer Ikechukwu Nnamani, the president of the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has reacted to a reported decline in broadband connections in Nigeria.
Business Metrics had reported that telecoms operators in Nigeria lost 1.65 million connections to broadband services on their networks in November, 2020, according to data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Reacting to the development, Nnamani said it would be misplaced to use the performance report of just one month to judge general performance of the country’s telecoms sector.
he added that the reported decline may have been caused by a temporary issue which will in no time reverse.
According to him, “It is always best to judge the performance of any sector on an annual basis and not on month by month basis.
“There could be temporary issues affecting a particular geopolitical zone of the country that may affect the performance of the sector, but that will reverse after some time.
“So I will not use the performance of November as a yard stick to judge the performance of the sector. It is better to wait for the full year report for better analysis of the industry,” Nnamani said.
Meanwhile, Business Metrics’ intelligence gathering shows that centrifugal movement among Nigerians may have contributed to the 1.65 million lost broadband connection.
Experts explained that migrations of people with their SIM cards from centres where broadband networks (3G and 4G) are available to suburbs and remote areas with networks of lower quality always contribute to a decline in registered broadband connections.
More to his remark, Ikechukwu Nnamani also reiterated the association’s support to the government efforts to ensure everyone has a National Identity Number (NIN) as this will help in national planning among other benefits.
“We have been working with the various government agencies to ensure a smooth and safe implementation of the registration process.
“The harmonization of the SIM-NIN databases is a simpler issue to address since it is all about integration of databases using technology.
“The entities involved should be able to accomplish this with minimum challenge. It is our hope that when the exercise is complete, there won’t be loss of subscriber lines. However, this requires those that don’t have NIN to get it now, hence the registration is key,” he conlcuded.
