ISPAN, ALTON Ring Hope for ISP Business

The business of selling bandwidth by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) is expected receive a boost this year  as more providers are to begin operation, according to Engr. Sam Adeleke, immediate past president, Internet Service Providers Association of Nigeria (ISPAN) .

Adeleke also chief executive officer Steineng Ltd, added that small internet service providers that will be involved in the reselling of bandwidth from major 4G operators have also been licensed by Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and they are to start business this year.

“There is a boom in the data business in the country which is another reason why ISP business is looking up. Today, GSM operators are focusing more on the data service which has compromised on the voice service thereby led to poor voice quality on their network. Their compressor ratio on the voice platform is low,” he said.

He said that there is need for ISPs to expand their scope in view of competition with Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) providers that also provide internet services.

Adeleke also frowned at the policy of encouraging internet penetration through government subsidy describing it as counterproductive.

Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said that granting multiple operational licenses to operators to provide metro and national fibre infrastructure does not guarantee investment in that regard, but implementation of  well-articulated policies that will encourage operators to invest their money.

He said Government must go beyond granting of licenses to eliminating those barriers such as bottlenecks in securing ‘right of way’, impediments to smooth network operations- where operators are forced to pay levies that are not legalized, and vandalisation.

Adebayo, explained that broadband services are anchored on availability of bandwidth, and that with excess capacity of it at our shore, investment need to be encouraged to distribute this capacity to various geographical areas of the country for broadband revolution to be experienced as is the case with voice service.

He added that unless these barriers are addressed it may be difficult for operators to invest in infrastructure that will enable provision of broadband.