Nigeria Lobbies ITU For More Telecom Spectrum; The Nigerian government through the telecommunications regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is set to lobby the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for additional spectrum on the 700MHz which would enable the telecom operators provide efficient services deploying less base stations across the country.

The Nigerian delegation to the World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 (WRC-12) which holds in Geneva, Switzerland from January 23 to February 17 2012, is lobbying the global telecom regulator for additional spectrum on 700MHz currently being sued for by the broadcasting industry.



Mr. Bashir Gwandu, Executive Commissioner, NCC, said the country needs at least three slots which could be used by mobile operators to deploy high capacity mobile voice and data services, noting that there was not enough spectrum available for the regulators which explains why Africa was going to ITU to push for more spectrum because of the huge data that are going to be growing in the continent, which need to be accommodated.

Averting Network Congestion
He said, “In Africa we have affordability problem, adding more additional sites is not the best way to go because it is going to cost more. So we said let’s have more spectrum, that is why we pushed for additional spectrum allocation on the 700MHz, which is a befitting spectrum being used for analogue TV.

“So we said let’s digitise our television so that we can have the spectra for telephony services and we are pushing for spectra 690-790mhz. At the last conference of ITU WRC, we said Africans haven’t got Digital Dividend because we have already licenced CDMA, what is left for us is just 790-806MHz which is 16MHz, which is not going to take us anywhere.

“We said let’s extend it to 698MHz that would last for three major operators or an existing operator can buy part of the spectrum and expand their network and still accommodate more people and have better quality service and indeed accommodate the data growth that will come overtime. This is what we are pushing for at ITU, we are leading Africa in this fight for the next WRC next year and we are going to tell ITU that we want it now, we can’t wait any more, the whole of Africa wants it as soon as possible,” he added.

Reliance on Wireless Communication
Gwandu noted that in Africa there is heavy reliance on wireless communications because there is not enough fibre and copper infrastructures on ground. In Nigeria in particular, we have huge population resulting in network congestion and to solve that huge population problem we need to increase capacity.

Already, the regulator still has the 2.3GHz spectrum which it is still trying to auction. It also has the 2.6GHz which may be licenced for IMT service, that is full mobile broadband using long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.

WRC-12
The World Radio Communication conferences (WRC) holds every three to four years. It is the job of WRC to review, and, if necessary, revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of the radio-frequency spectrum and the geostationary-satellite and non-geostationary-satellite orbits. Revisions are made on the basis of an agenda determined by the ITU Council, which takes into account recommendations made by previous world radiocommunication conferences.

The ITU and the Africa Telecommunication Union (ATU) which held in Geneva, November 9, 2011, the 3rd African Group Preparatory Meeting for the Radiocommunication Assembly 2012 (RA-12) and World Radiocommunication Conference 2012 (WRC-12) agreed to push for additional spectrum to be released to African regulators.

In Europe last week, Portugal Telecom, Sonaecom and Vodafone Portugal each won spectrum in Portugal’s LTE spectrum auction. Portugal Telecom and Sonaecom’s mobile phone units, TMN and Optimus, respectively announced that they had placed winning bids in three frequency bands. They each paid a total of €113 million for nine blocks; the minimum price set by the Portuguese telecommunications regulator, CMVM.

Source:http://leadership.ng/nga/articles/9721/2011/12/06/nigeria_lobbies_itu_more_telecom_spectrum.html

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