Daily Independent Online.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2004.
Our purpose is to crash cost of
telecom services, says MTS
By Emma Okonji
IT. Telecom Reporter, Lagos
In a bid to make telephony affordable to Nigerians,
MTS First Wireless says its purpose of entering the telecom market is to crash
cost of telecommunication services in the country.
Mr. Richmond Aggrey, chief executive of MTS revealed
this in Lagos last week when he and some management staff of MTS paid a
courtesy visit to the corporate office of Daily Independent Newspapers.
According to him, the MTS idea was borne out of share
frustration he felt in those early years, precisely 1985 when people had to book
calls and wait eternity for their calls to go through. ‘‘But beyond
the sheer frustration, I felt a business opportunity had presented itself
because Nigeria, with a huge population, was clearly under serviced in terms of
the number of telephone lines available then, and I was therefore convinced
that the telecom sector was the way to go,’’ he said. He explained
that the telecom company was targeting eight cities in its second phase roll
out, and that MTS is currently deploying 100, 000 voice and 100, 000 data on
its network, while running the network on a CDMA 2000 1X technology. The
combination of voice and data on the same network, using the same switch, will
amount to some savings that would eventually lead to crash in telecom services,
Aggrey said, adding that MTS charges N4 per minute for all calls within its
network and N6 per minute from its network to other fixed wireless networks.
GSM call is put at N21 per minute.
He further explained that the nature of the switching
system coupled with the zonal numbering system that was granted them by the
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), make MTS phones more convenient to
use and at affordable cost and tariff. Given details of the zonal numbering
licence, Aggrey said MTS various codes such as 01, 02, 09, and 084.
According to him, these codes enable subscribers to
have access to network even if the subscriber has to leave the location from
where he bought the phone. The 01 code number covers Lagos, Ibadan, Ilorin and
Abeokuta such that an MTS phone bought in Lagos, could be used to make calls in
Ibadan, Ilorin and Abeokuta, while an MTS phone bought in Abuja, with the code
09,
could be used to make calls in most Northern parts of
the country, as the code 09 covers the North.
Speaking on the services of MTS, Aggrey said the
company has licence to operate long distance calls, and international data
gateway, and Internet service.
With the national long distance call service, MTS is
able to provide voice service on the information super highway and provide
service to other fixed wireless operators that would carry voice through its
super highway.
NCC granted license to only Globacom, NITEL and MTS
to build information highways that would accommodate traffic from other
networks. The good aspect of it is that the operators have choice of network,
explaining that MTS is providing such service at affordable cost.
Aggrey explained that MTS will be holding talks in
China soon to complete its Final Investment Decision (FID) aimed at building
its own optic fibre across the country in order to carry traffic on the
national distance carrier.
For its Internet service, MTS has developed ideas
that would make subscribers have easy access to the Internet via the MTS phone
and at no additional infrastructure. All the subscriber need do is to get MTS
phone, a laptop, and he is connected with cables to the Internet. The same
phone could be unplugged and used to make calls, MTS said.
A major highlight in the new tariff regime is that
the company offers free monthly access unlike other wireless phone operators.
Another major highlight in the new tariff regime is
that prepaid cards in the denomination of N5,000, automatically credits the
user with an extra N500 credit upon loading the top up card.
Mr. Reuben Muoka, Head of Corporate Affairs, said
that the details of the rates approved by the company applies to users of
portable phones, or the desktops. He said local calls from portable phones to
other networks cost same as desktop phones. Calls to GSM networks from First
Wireless phones will cost N28 per minute for peak period and N24.64 for off
peak periods. Calls within First Wireless network has been pegged at N4.00 per
minute for peak periods and N3.52 for off peak periods. Calls to other PTOs
from First Wireless cost N6.00 per minute and N5.28 for off peak periods. Local
calls to NITEL costs N6.50 per minute for peak periods and 5.72 per minute
during off peak.
On the long distance routes, intra-zonal calls like
call from Lagos to Ondo or Oyo states cost N 12 per minute of peak period and
N10.56 for off peak periods.
Intra zonal calls, like calls from Lagos to Abuja,
Kaduna or Maiduguri, costs N22 per minute for peak periods and N19.36 for off
peak periods. On the international routes, First Wireless has adopted a
three-band tariff arrangement where in Band A, comprising of USA, Western
Europe, Canada and South Africa costs N39 per minute for peak periods and
N34.71 for off peak periods. In the B and A, comprising of the rest of Africa,
Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia, calls to these countries cost N44 per
minute for peak period and N39.16 for off peak. The band C comprising of the
rest parts of the world costs N49 per minute peak time and N43.61 per minute of
off peak.
With the availability of prepaid cards ranging from N500,
N1,500, N3,000 and N5,000 denominations, all the more than 5,000 new
subscribers in the new
network are to be migrated to the prepaid card regime while all those
interested in the post paid regime will fulfill some registration and
identification requirements.
