Firm Excites Telecoms Sector With a 500,000-Line Facility
allafrica.com
Vanguard (Lagos)
January 15, 2003
Okoh Aihe
Once upon a time, I needed to make some urgent calls somewhere at Ikeja, and my friend, a kind gentleman, quickly obliged me with his phone. This was the era of private telephony and my friend was a Starcomms subscriber. When he offered me the use of his phone, I simply told him there was no need. My reason was that at the time, Starcomms couldn't be ranked with any of the other operators in efficiency, I didn't want to try one line for hours un-end because of a Starcomms phone.
By last week when Mr Dirk Smart, the new Chief Executive Officer, spoke to a select media representatives in Lagos, it was quite obvious that the fortunes of the company were out of the abyss into a new dawn, where Starcomms can be rated as a front-liner in the deregulated Telecoms environment. But this has taken a new management, a lot of repositioning and a lot of money. And now, Mr Dirk can talk, and when he did speak last week, there was a lot to talk about. For a company which struggled to get into other people's network only recently, has just installed a $60 million facility and plans to spend another $350 million in another two years. The facility described as the latest generation of CDMA equipment has a capacity for 500,000 lines, although the system is enabled for 150,000 lines at the moment.
Having visited quite a few Exchanges around the world, a tour of Starcomms facility presented an unbelievable but pleasant surprise state-of-the -art facility which is obviously one of the very best around here. It has guaranteed protection from fire and flood, and is power-fed by giant generators with battery support, a development that made Dirk boast that even in a state of emergency, when there is no power transmission, the Starcomms transmission could remain for days.
But also in that environment, still standing side by side with the new equipment are some relics of pains, an early technology, which he informed was a first generation CDMA equipment invested in, just like the other operators. The system was supplied by Qualcom. Recounting the story of the machine, Dirk explained that the Exchange had a capacity for 25,000 lines but by the time they put in 4,000, the network was blocked. The wise decision to take was simply to go in search of some other machines that could match today's growing technology and expansion needs.
But he remembers that time with pain: "By being pioneers, in an environment which was not open, by being courageous, although not service oriented, we have lost hundred millions of dollars."
He is right. At this particular time, Mr Dirk had his first stint with the industry but had to immediately run away from the country because the industry was not organised at all and he didn't see how a professional was going to make an impact in selling lines.
Now this same sector has changed and is aligning with the rest of the world where the telecom sector is the most organised. Dirk confessed that there is no where in the world there is privatisation where business doesn't explode.
Even government officials here are beginning to be alive to their responsibilities. In reacting to a complaint by Starcomms Chairman, Chief Lababidi, at the launch of the new equipment on December 17, last year, that it has lost millions of Naira because of NITEL's inability to provide E1s, the Minister of State for Communications, Alhaji Adekunle Haruna Elewi expressed sympathy and pledged that the ministry would co-operate with all private operators in their efforts to provide telephones for all Nigerians. This is a sharp contradistinction from the heady days when government took pleasure in reminding Nigerians that telephones were not for the poor. Since the coming of the Obasanjo administration, the government has ensured that it creates a healthy environment for telecoms to thrive. This may have encouraged the Starcomms management to invest so heavily in the sector, while ensuring that Dirk returns to Nigeria for a top management position.
With new investment and a change in management, Starcomms has gone full circle to emerge as one of the most promising telecoms companies in the country. What is more! Dirk believes in the efficiency of the CDMA technology and, in fact, sees it as the only technology that can move Africa forward.
Hear him : "CDMA is a good technology to open up Africa. In Africa it's the only way forward.". And he is not also bothered with the spread of GSM, instead he says he is not in search of communities without GSM but in search of a reliable network, which Starcomms has in the Exchange just put in place. Facility failure is far from his equations as Ericsson, which is the technical partner is giving full technical support, in terms of resources on the ground, rollout, training and maintenance.
With a good network in place, Dirk is already looking ahead. "I would hope to end the year tops. But I have to build all the structures. I would like to end the year with 200,000 lines. By the end of 2008, I look forward to one million subscribers".
He also hopes to take services to Kano and Rivers before the end of the year. There is a big market, he says, because even with GSM Nigeria still remains a virgin market because of the long time it took to liberalize.
This is the way he puts it : "If you are not a mobile person and you need reliable communications, there are cheaper alternatives". He noted that the tariff is structured in such a way that all users, whether casual, regular and bulk, would find a place in the Starcomms tariff. |
