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Pirate telecom firm
Pirate telecom firm
THE emergence
of an unregistered telecom firm riding rough-shod on the nation’s radio spectrum
as reported recently is as depressing as it is frightening. If past cases of
private radio stations - which operators went largely undetected - were regarded
as embarrassing by the authorities, the revelation that an unknown firm offering
telephony services now operates in our land raises serious questions about the
state of our internal security, and our capacity to monitor and protect the
fast-growing telecommunication sector of our economy.
According to the report, the unregistered
Private Telephone Operator (PTO) with ‘050’ as its network access code followed
by a four-digit subscriber telephone number has extended its services to several
parts of Lagos State. Offering call tariffs far below what any of the four
licensed Global System for Mobile (GSM) Telecommunication operators or any other
PTO charges, the unnamed telecom firm is fast becoming the favourite of
telephone call centres, otherwise known as business centres, in Lagos and its
suburbs.
The report further indicated that for
calls terminating within the Lagos area, the pirate telecom company’s tariff is
as low as N5.00 per minute as against an average of N23.00 per minute and N10.00
per minute charged by licensed GSM firms and PTOs respectively. Besides, the
cost of international calls on the pirate network is said to be about 70 per
cent less than what obtains on genuine networks.
The illegal operators, having thus crashed
telephone tariffs, are said to be on the prowl, luring operators of call centres
to come on board their dubious network with a promise of bigger profit than can
possibly be made by using telephone lines of the licensed firms. It is not yet
known how the fraudsters behind this illegality contrived to power the pirate
network.
Remarkably, since the report of the pirate
telecom firm broke on July 15, 2004, the only reaction from the industry
regulator, the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission (NCC), has been that the
development would be investigated to unearth those behind it. So far, there is
no evidence that the NCC has taken even the most elementary step towards this
end.
Yet, this is one development that exposes
the underbelly of our internal security. After investing hugely to procure
operating licences and build their networks, private telecommunications
companies doing business in our country deserve to be protected. The NCC exists
not only to issue licences and monitor how such licences are used, but also to
secure the space, in this case, the nation’s radio spectrum, in which investors
in the telecommunication industry operate.
To a reasonable extent, the agency has
done a good job of nurturing private sector involvement in our telecom sector.
It has even shown capacity to enforce the rule in dealing with operators as it
did in sealing up the offices of six of them operating either without licences
or beyond the scope of their licences. What is doubtful is the capacity of the
agency to respond when a stranger element such as the ‘050’ operator infiltrates
the industry the way it has done.
It could be argued that being a relatively
new organisation, the NCC is yet to fully acquire the appropriate technology or
infrastructure to enable it cope with this sort of emergency. But such an
argument cannot be stretched without far-reaching repercussions on the job it
has been assigned to do. Despite the fact that money realised from the 2001 GSM
licence auction was visionlessly shared by the federal and state governments
without caring for the need to develop infrastructure, it devolves still on the
agency to keep pointing out deficits in its surveillance and enforcement
capacities while making the case for better funding.
Viewed from a security perspective, this
development calls for a multi-service approach. It will be short-sighted for our
security agencies to dismiss it as a problem for the NCC alone. The existence in
our territory of an illegal telecom firm bears security implications that need
not be gainsaid. All hands ought to be on deck to track down those behind the
‘050’ network in our economic and strategic interest.
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