By Adedapo Adesanya
Tower infrastructure companies (Towercos) have expressed readiness to help mobile network operators (MNOs) free up some required expenses to ensure the fifth-generation (5G) technology is delivered to Nigerians at a lower cost.
This is as they called for partnerships to bridge Nigeria’s $136 billion infrastructure gap, stressing that if industry collaboration is achieved, more development could be attracted.
This was the talking point at the second edition of the Policy Implementation Assisted Forum (PAIFo) organised by BusinessMetrics Nigeria to discuss national policy on 5G themed Ascertaining Full Readiness to make 5G Work in Nigeria.
The operators engaging other stakeholders, including government, regulators and operators said the industry must rally ahead of the 5G rollout in the country.
Speaking on Bridging Telecoms Infrastructure Gaps for 5G: The Imperatives, Brand Manager, Pan African Towers, Mr Okim-Alobi Oyama, explained that 5G needs five times the current number of street furniture sites in dense urban areas and twice the power consumption for each of the sites due to higher computing.
Mr Oyama said the technology also needs edge computing, mandatory fibre connection, massive MiMo antennas and key policy implementation to drive the network.
To get this done, he suggested that the gap in the telecommunications sector should be treated as critical network infrastructure.
Backing his case with statistics, the Pan African Tower chief noted that there are over 195.4 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria while mobile GSM contributes about 99.75 per cent to the total market share with over 141.9 million Internet subscribers.
According to him, broadband penetration was about 40.88 per cent as of December 2021 whereas telecoms contributed 12.45 per cent to Nigeria’s gross domestic product as of the third quarter of 2021.
Mr Oyama said implementing the necessary developments is based on about 32,470 towers infrastructure currently existing in Nigeria, stressing that “there is a network infrastructure gap currently capped at over $136 billion, approximately an additional 40,000 towers to be built to close this infrastructure gap.”
He said that Nigeria has developed a National Broadband Plan (NBP) to achieve deeper penetration but noted that this cannot be achieved as long as some problems exist.
“How can Nigeria implement its NBP and achieve its digital economy status if its Critical Network Infrastructure assets are continually vandalised and stolen?”
On his part, Mr Segun Akintemi, Director, IHS Nigeria, said for 5G to succeed in Nigeria, the necessary infrastructure needs to be in place.
He said infrastructure deployment usually precedes new technology deployment and is highly CAPEX intensive, adding that 5G comes with its unique infrastructure requirements.
He said that towercos will help the MNOs to release capital, stressing that leasing infrastructure from Towercos releases capital for MNOs and frees up investment needed for 5G and other services.
He stated that Towercos also facilitates market entry of new operators by presenting them with various lower-cost options, as well as helping manage the environment via co-location.
According to him, “co-location means fewer towers are needed to meet the network and enhanced connectivity demands.”
He anticipated that 5G demands from towercos will include two to four times the current number of sites (micro and street furniture); twice to thrice the power consumption of current sites; required fibre connectivity for scalability as well as space to accommodate massive multiple-in multiple-out (MiMo) Antennas.
“Other fresh demands to meet Nigeria’s 5G target are high reliability and availability/uptime towards 99.999 per cent, that is, downtime of 24 seconds per month; new competence and skilled resources and data centres for edge computing.
“In terms of bridging the infrastructure gap, the above considerations are at the forefront for IHS Nigeria. They require significant investment, regulatory support and customer collaboration,” he said.
Modupe Gbadeyanka