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| l-r: Emeka Okpara, Director, Corporate Communications, Osondu Nwokoro, Director, Regulatory Affairs and Special Projects and Awadhesh Kalia, Chief Technical Officer, all of Airtel Nigeria |
Telecommunications services
provider, Airtel Nigeria has renewed calls for the classifications of telecom
installations as a national infrastructure.
The telco said this has become
alarming following more recent attacks on telecom facilities by terrorist
group, Boko Haram and flood that ravaged the country in recent times.
Director, Regulatory Affairs and
Special Projects at Airtel, Mr. Osondu Nwokoro in paper at a media parley in
Lagos, Tuesday, entitled ‘Recent Developments Impacting Telecommunications
Operations and Quality of Service in Nigeria,’ said that these twin challenges,
have resulted unfortunately to loss of lives and property.
Also, he said these challenges
have led to loss of telecommunications equipment and an attendant degeneration
of quality of service.
Airtel has, therefore, restated
its call on the Federal Government to declare Telecoms Equipment as Critical
National Infrastructure, just as it appealed to the National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA) to make the restoration of telecoms facilities in
flooded areas a priority focus of its restoration plans.
Nwokoro who decried the menace of
terror attacks on 53 installations, which has disrupted operations in 193 sites
across the Northern part of Nigeria, added that the devastating impact of the
flooding in the Middle-Belt, South and Delta States, has equally affected 32
installations and impacted on the overall operations of 41 sites across the
region.
According to him, due to armed
insurgency in parts of the North, the company’s network restoration and roll
out of operations as well as the routine preventive 24hours maintenance of
telecoms facilities have been totally stalled in Adamawa, Gombe, Kano, Bauchi,
Borno, Yobe and Kaduna States.
Similarly, he said, flooding in
Lokoja, Asaba, Ugheli- Patani and Patani-Elele have adversely damaged telecoms
installations and led to further loss of sites and fiber capacities.
Expectedly, these disasters have
resulted in spiraling costs of maintenance in affected locations to thrice the
normal rate, consequently leading to colossal financial losses and dipping
revenues.
He explained that the impact of
the disasters on telecoms operators is local, national and international in
scope.
Nwokoro bemoaned the fact that the
loss of capacity occasioned by these threats often affects quality of service
delivery and customer experience leading to a drop in key performance
indicators.
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