Poor Internet Connection Sounds Death Knell For Businesses

Poor Internet Connection Sounds Death Knell For Businesses

The rising number of industries facing death threat from poor Internet connectivity in Nigeria belies the general impression that the nation is an Eldorado for the digital community, OZIOMA UBABUKOH writes

Since the revolution of telecommunications in Nigeria over a decade ago, the demand for its services has been growing by the minute. No one is therefore surprised that the nation is the fastest growing market among the top 30 Internet countries of the world. With over 67 million Internet users, Nigeria is ranked number one in Africa and eighth in the world, accounting for 2.3 per cent of the world’s Internet users despite being 2.46 per cent of the world’s population.

But beyond the impressive statistics, there is a growing list of businesses folding up and others face a similar threat from the weak Internet connectivity in the country.

For instance, Brandish, KESI&U, GoVenture are some of the Micro and Small Medium Enterprises affected by the inadequate Internet connectivity.Ameze Okuba also tells her own story on how Internet connectivity is ruining her consultancy business.

Media observers in the country say that the Brandish, an online journal, is about the most read online magazine. But the publisher, Mr. Ikem Okuhu, says that the slow connection to broadband Internet is not only distorting its 24-hour online operation, it is also weakening the magazine’s content.

On how he is coping with the situation, Okuhu says, “We merely endure the frustrations and losses of opportunities the poor services bring to our business. We have tried to complain but no one seems to be listening. So, we have resorted to acquiring multiple operators and praying that at least one of them manages to work at a point.

“As we speak, our coping strategy has pushed us to invest in four service providers. In the office, we have MTN, Smile, Etisalat and Swift. We live on the hope that they all do not fail at the same time. But the fact is that sometimes they all do. It is either they are too slow or they just won’t work. Why should we have four operators when we do not need more than one? But that is the reality and every month, we spend money recharging all the four hoping that we get good service. This means that the cost of Internet access has quadrupled for us. It is a very frustrating situation.”

The Brandish publisher recalls how members of his team recently spent a lot of money on video editing with the hope of getting video interface for the stories being published by them.

Okuhu says they had expected it would not only enhance the quality of their material but also add excitement to their value propositions.

“But you discover that to edit our videos, load on our YouTube channel and then transfer to our site can take a whole day. This exercise should ordinarily take a few minutes if the data is optimal. But we take long hours that ordinarily should be used for other things just to publish a single material,” he says.

He also says, “Our business is dependent on the ease of access to our website. So, if a reader will have to experience so much buffering, slow-loads and all manner of frustration just to access us, what happens is he abandons the effort. That is a lost reader as far as we are concerned.

“If you also realise that we have had occasions when business mails take hours to get attached and as a result are not delivered on time, you then understand what these guys are doing to us.”

Okuhu says it is an understatement to describe the Internet in Nigeria as slow, but rather, “It is in a terrible state and has been killing businesses.”

To him, the problem is that there seems to be a conspiracy among the service providers to make promises they cannot deliver.

He adds, “I just hope someone in authority will wake up to force them to do what they should, which is to focus on service rather than selling hardware that delivers nothing but failure and frustration.”

Dere Oritsejafor is the Chief Executive Officer of KESI&U Cyber Café in Enugu. Having run a successful cyber café for 11 years (since 2004), in May 2015, she decided to sack all her workers because revenue was not coming in any longer.

She says, “The Internet speed in the cyber café is not any better than what you have on the smartphones and dungles. So over time, the customers and prospective customers have seen no reason to patronise us. They now stay in their homes or offices to do their work from their devices.

“Only one employee and I now run the cyber café’s small business now. We open the place once in a while to attend to university admission candidates seeking to use their scratch cards to obtain examination or admission details.”

Oritsejafor adds that she sometimes opens the café to job-hunting Nigerians who need scratch cards to ascertain some recruitment details.

“Like in the last Immigration recruitment exercise that claimed the lives of many Nigerians, we made some money from selling the scratch cards and attending to those who required our services to find out necessary information,” she says.

GoVenture is a simulation business that enables Nigerian students to educate one another and their counterparts across the world at the same time through a computer, tablet or a smartphone. But the GoVenture project is gradually shutting down because the slow Internet speed in the country is discouraging many students from being part of the simulation game.

The GoVenture franchise that operates in Nigeria runs simulations of lemonade business, including stock exchange simulations that can educate young people, allow them to play, compete and make friends across the world.

“For us to achieve our plan of linking Nigerian students with others internationally, our Internet must work properly so that they can play the game at the same time with others in the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries. This has hindered our launch of the very apps to operate this project,” says the GoVenture franchise Chief Executive Officer in Nigeria, Mr. Wale Williams.

Williams laments that the issue is getting worse by the day.

He says, “Initially, you could plan your business on the net but I cannot imagine anyone who can boast of successfully achieving this now.

“Because of this problem, we are finding it hard to run a successful simulation business to enable students in different parts of the country to play with one another. And if we cannot achieve our local based project, how do we expect to link Nigerian students up with others across the world? Government needs to do something about this problem.”

According to the GoVenture Nigeria’s CEO, the traffic on the net is essential for the business to succeed because it is Internet-based. Where slow Internet is hampering people’s participation, “the tendency for us to succeed and continue to build a higher traffic is limited.”

He adds, “We are trying to revolutionise business education and training in schools and build a strong network of young entrepreneurs across the nation who will link up with others across the world.”

Oritsejafor also notes that poor electricity supply, regulation, insecurity and the dearth of infrastructure are major threats to broadband delivery.

She says, “To operate and deliver value, each network operator must provide its own electricity at exorbitant cost. Reputed to be the largest generator market in the world, the cost of providing this necessity is passed to the subscribers, that is, we the cyber café operators. The inconsistency and unreliability is largely responsible for epileptic Internet services.”

On insecurity, she says, “Even with shared services, the base stations have to be adequately secured against vandalism. Even with the best security, there have been compromises and base stations have literarily been shut down with the attendant consequences on those of us who subscribe on a large scale.

“Nigeria has largely been a multi-simming (multi-SIM cards) country with subscribers using a number of networks to guarantee service in various locations. However, with shared services and the challenge of insecurity, a shut out of a base station affects a number of operators and consequently a broader base of running a cyber cafe.”

Ameze Okuba is a consultant who works most times from the comfort of her bedroom. Based in Lagos, she says the slow Internet connectivity has denied her 50 per cent of her earnings in the past three years.

Her story, “The frustration from Internet failures is killing. Once I had a very important document sent to me from Texas, the United States; it required that I open the attachment, make input, and send back. But to my utmost disappointment, the effort to download the document was taking ages.

“Most times the connection would be lost, while at other times, the document would open half way with the rest lost. Even when I continued running from one cyber café to another, I kept experiencing the same failure. The period of downtime on the Internet made it impossible for me to meet the deadline.

“Another area the issue of poor Internet connectivity in the country has hampered my business is the operation of Automated Teller Machines. On a particular Sunday, I came into Port Harcourt hoping to cash some money from the ATM; I went round most banks but without success. When the ATM service point kept rejecting the card, I decided to locate a branch of the bank where my account is domiciled. Even there, the response was ‘switch operator not available’ while at another point, it was unable to dispense cash.”

Okuba adds, “As a consultant, we make graphic designs and send to clients via email. Most times, we experience difficulties in getting steady Internet access to upload the designs on Jpeg to send. Even when we try to drop visuals, getting network access proves awkward.”

The President, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), Mr. Sunday Folayan, says there is a way out of the dilemma if only the governments and concerned authorities will realise that connectivity is about values and the value chain.

He says, “Just like you have big airports that Jumbo jets can land, if you do not have good roads and plenty of smaller cars and buses to transport people to the airports, they cannot board the big planes.

“We need to ensure that the various tiers of Internet access and connectivity are active and working to meet the needs of the people. The fact that wireless technology is quick to deploy has relegated terrestrial connectivity to almost non-existent.

“Quick deployment is not in the best interest of the consumers, because they will always be limited in capacity. True broadband is terrestrial and best served by fibre optics or at the worst cable.”

Folayan also talks about class licensing. He says there is “too much” focus on spectrum, which is pushing the operators to concentrate more on wireless instead of exploring terrestrial networks that could better serve the people.

“No doubt mobility is good, but businesses are localised and seldom move all about. The regulator needs to strike the right balance and soon,” the NiRA president adds.

The telecommunications company, Globacom, which owns Glo 1, says there is a lot of Internet bandwidth capacity in Nigeria now due to the availability of international submarine cables. Despite this, it says it does not know where the problem of slow or lack of access to Internet connectivity may be coming from.

For instance, it says the Glo 1 is an armoured undersea cable singly laid thousands of kilometres from Nigeria to the United Kingdom with a dedicated extension to the United States to connect Africa to the rest of the world.

“This unique convergence has made Globacom a major player in the provision of Internet bandwidth to individual and corporate subscribers,” it says.

The Chief Executive Officer of MainOne Cable Company, Ms. Funke Opeke, supports the Globacom’s view, adding that when uptake volumes cross a certain threshold; she will be willing to reduce the cost of bandwidth that will in turn lead to fast Internet service.

MainOne owns MainOne West African Cable System, another homegrown undersea cable initiative like the Glo 1; and funded by MTN, and dormant capacities in NigComSat R and SAT 3 in which the moribund Nigeria Telecommunications Company, also known as NITEL, is a major stakeholder.

To reduce the cost of bandwidth, she says, “All stakeholders in the industry and the government need to take necessary steps towards achieving the massive infrastructure rollout required to bring broadband services to more Nigerians. The role of broadband in driving Gross Domestic Product growth in the economies of developing countries is enormous.”

The Nigeria Internet Group says the solution to the problem is to crash the cost of bandwidth, urging the Federal Government to step in and subsidise the cost so that when it becomes ubiquitous, the benefits arising from the economy of scale will be fully tapped.

The NIG President, Bayo Banjo, says to get good bandwidth, there is a need to bring the cost down.

He says, “What I told the government is that they should bring down the cost of bandwidth. The Federal Government should subsidise the cost of bandwidth so that when the customer base becomes large, when the ordinary man also begins to browse, there will be economies of scale that will bring down the price.

“Somebody has to take the flak. Even MainOne CEO, Funke Opeke, has promised that if she has certain amount of volume, she can bring bandwidth cost down to $25 per month for one megabyte, which is about N2,000 for a whole megabyte but she needs that volume.

“So, what firms like Mobitel, Spectranet (and others) are doing is that they say they are giving you one megabyte at N10, 000 per month but the truth is that it is really not one megabyte. They are sharing bandwidth. That is why sometimes it goes so slow that you cannot open a page. Sometimes it breaks altogether. So, the Federal Government has a big role to play in this matter,” he adds.

South Africa-based telecommunications company, MTN, says broadband penetration has been limited because the country has not resolved issues around spectrum.

Speaking through its Public Relations and Protocol Manager in Nigeria, Mr. Funso Aina, it says the Nigerian Communications Commission and the Federal Government must be able to issue licences for the 4G spectrum.

He says, “We, as operators, must be able to sort out the issues around the Right of Way and putting sufficient fibre into the ground – we will need more metropolitan and national fibre. When all these have been done, and 4G is maintained, then we are in for great things in Nigeria.”

On whether the regulators could indeed facilitate the right solution to address the main challenges, Aina says, “Well, a good start is the National Broadband Plan, which is a most forward-looking and progressive instrument. The key challenge is implementation.

“The right policy framework is a critical issue, but it cannot be taken in isolation – it is only when the enabling environment and the necessary resources are put in place that the true promise of the digital future/digital economy will be realised.”

But a source at the NCC who is not happy with the commission’s handling of the slow Internet service, says, “We should get to a situation where all the approvals needed to execute broadband services are obtainable from one single source.

“That will ensure express processing of permits and operators can deliver service promptly and more efficiently to end users, especially where fibre needs to be laid to the customer’s doorstep.”