Nwaulune: Spectrum Licence Remains a National Resource 

Director, Spectrum Administration, Nigerian Communications Commission and Chairman Local Organising Committee, ITU Telecom World 2017, Mr. Austin Nwaulune, spoke with journalists during the just concluded conference in Busan, South Korea, on the controversies revolving around spectrum administration and allocation. Emma Okonji who was there brings the excerpts:

What does it take to organise international conference like the ITU Telecom World 2017, which just ended in Busan, South Korea, which Nigeria participated in?

It takes intelligence and people of like minds to organise the Nigeria Pavilion and programmes, including the Nigerian Investment Forum at ITU Telecom World 2017. The Chairman LOC is just a coordinator and everyone has to do his or her own job, and that was what gave us huge success at this year’s’ ITU Telecom World in South Korea. My major role was to coordinate all members of my committee and it turnout to be successful because all members of the LOC showed full commitment to their duties.

The Nigeria Pavilion at ITU 2017 was very outstanding and full of activities all through the period of the conference, as foreigners were trooping in to make business enquiries. How did you manage all of these and what were the challenges in putting the pavilion together in terms of logistics?

Like I said earlier, my duty was to coordinate and I will give kudos to my team who worked tirelessly, attending several meetings to ensure that all went well. As for the logistics, we had to work with the ITU approved infrastructure providers who were on ground in Busan, South Korea and we went for the best and got the best of pavilion, and that was the point of attraction, combined with quality activities at the pavilion that attracted ITU participants from different parts of the world to our stand. For instance, the NCC, in its wisdom, selected the best SME Startups cutting across various sectors of the economy, numbering six and sponsored them to this year’s ITU Telecom World conference. So because the startups had good solutions that address global needs, investors were trooping into the Nigeria Pavilion to have a chat with the SME Startups. Six of them were presented to the ITU body for pitching at the global level and five were selected to pitch with other selected startups from other countries. Nigeria had the highest number of SME Startups that were selected, after the host country, South Korea, which had eight contestants selected for the global pitch.

The five selected contestants from Nigeria,  joined other 21 SME Startups, making a total of 26 startups selected from 12 countries of the world to contest for the final pitch in South Korea.

Among the 26 global contestants from 12 countries, South Africa had three contestants, Rwanda had two, Poland had one, Indonesia had three, United States of America had 3, Sudan had one, Azerbaijan had one, Japan had one, Benin Republic had one, China had one, Nigeria had five, and the host country, South Korea had eight contestants. The six SME Startups from Nigeria that were sponsored by NCC, were given individual stands inside the Nigeria Pavilion, and because they had good solutions, participants were attracted to the Nigeria Pavilion among other side attractions. So the Nigeria Pavilion was a beehive of activities all through the four days that the conference lasted.

This year was not the first time that NCC sponsored SME Startups to ITU, what has been the value added to the economy?

The value added is enormous because we are using them to showcase local technology innovations from Nigeria that could address global issues. Last year, some of them won awards after pitching and shortly after that they were talking with foreign investors that were interested in becoming partners. The whole essence is to give them global exposure and that is what NCC has been doing over the years.

 

Although we saw foreign investors during the Nigeria Day and the Nigeria Investment Forum Day at ITU, how do you intend to increase foreign investors’ participation in subsequent years, especially at a time that Nigeria needs foreign investors to drive the country’s broadband plan?

Last year, I was still the Chairman of the LOC, and this year, we came up with new strategies to improve on last year’s participation by foreign investors, and I can tell you that there was an improvement and we will continue to strategise to make our participation a lot much better every year. We will not say we were satisfied with the turnout of foreign investors to the Nigeria Investment Forum and the Nigeria Day at this year’s ITU conference, but I know there is always room for improvement and we are ready to improve on that, going forward. What we will do next is to review our performances and see how best we can improve on them.

 

Every year, Nigeria attends ITU Telecom World conference to woo investors. To what extent has this added value to the Nigerian economy?

The zeal to woo foreign investors is a continuous exercise and we are sure that Nigeria is passing the message each time we attend the ITU conference. The opportunities for investments are huge and the federal government is doing everything possible to make the business environment around the country, a lot friendly to attract more foreign investments. We will continue to sell the potential of our country to the outside world and convince them why they should invest in Nigeria. If we get one investor each year, it will be an incentive for others to come. Last year we had foreign investors that indicated interest to invest in the Nigerian telecoms market and we will continue to woo them to come and invest in Nigeria.

There is a general belief that spectrum is scarce and that operators do not have enough spectrum to rollout their telecoms services to the people. Did the Nigeria delegation to this year’s ITU seek for more spectrum allocation from ITU?

It is true that spectrum is scarce and the operators need spectrum to rollout services. It is also true that it is the duty of the regulator to seek for more spectrum allocation from ITU at international fora, but the ITU Telecom World is not the forum to seek for spectrum allocation. The international forum to seek for spectrum allocation is the World Radiocommunication Conferences (WRC), which are held 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.

Member countries attend WRC to also seek for addition spectrum for their countries, and Nigeria is not an exception, because we have done it in the past. So what we go there to do is to ensure that the particular spectrum, which is like a pool for several countries, is properly harmonised for all countries in a particular region. We have three ITU regions and if any spectrum is adopted in any region, countries within that region will share it and this will enhance economy of scale within countries in that region, which will lead to reduction in the cost of spectrum.

 

NCC had promised to complete the auction of the remaining eight slots in the 2.6GHz spectrum. Is the auction likely to be completed anytime soon?

The process of auctioning the remaining eight slots in the 2.6GHz spectrum has been concluded. What we did as a regulator, was to do postmortem on the level of participation of the initial auction and to find out why most operators declined to participate in the auction exercise. While the postmortem was going on, some operators indicated their interests to buy the remaining slot and we invited them, discussed with them and sold them out. So we eventually sold to Intercellular. During the initial auction exercise, we advertised for 14 available slots in the 2.6GHz, and MTN bought six slots during the bid auction, remaining eight slots, out of which six slots were sold to Intercellular and the renaming two slots were used to compensate OpenSkies, the operator who was on 450MHz initially.

 

 

Is there going to be another spectrum auction soon?

Yes, there will be more spectrum auction in the future. We are looking at auctioning the 700MHz spectrum next, but the spectrum is still being used by the broadcast industry and we are hoping that by the time Nigeria fully migrates from analogue to digital broadcasting, the spectrum will be freed and auctioned to mobile operations.

 

 

Is there any fixed date for the full migration from analogue to digital?

I do not know about that, but the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed was saying the full migration process would soon be completed and we are hoping that when that is completed, we will have more spectrum to auction to telecoms operators.

 

As at the time MTN acquired Vsafone in January 2016, Visafone had a spectrum, which MTN claimed it also acquired in the process. Is it possible for an operator to acquire a company and its spectrum, which is a national resource?

Spectrum licence is a national resource and the processes of acquiring a company and its Licence or spectrum, are in two stages. What MTN did last year concerning Visafone, was about shares acquisition. It acquired 100 per cent of Visafone shares, but that does not stop Visafone from operating under the licensed name. But if the acquirer wants the acquired company to stop to exist with its brand name, then the acquirer will have to also acquire the license of the company. So by the time the license is transferred to the new owner, it can decide to rest the brand name of the acquired company. So what MTN did was to acquire 100 per cent shares of Visafone, without acquiring its licence, which of course does not give MTN the right to use the license of the acquired company. If MTN wants to acquire the license of Visafone, it has to apply to the regulator for transfer of spectrum licence.

 

Should NCC apply for the transfer of Visafone licence, what is the possibility that it will it?

Well they have applied already but as a regulator, we are still studying it, to ensure that it will not jeopardise competition, should the licence be transferred to MTN. We must ensure fair play in considering MTN’s application for transfer of Visafone spectrum licence. As a regulator, we will promote competition and not jeopardise it.

 

Do spectrum licences have lifespan, or are they something that operators could buy and hold on to them permanently?

As a regulator that is mindful of technology evolution and changes, we do not give out spectrum licences for permanent sale, the reason being that technology is changing. So want we do as a regulator, is to fix a time limit for all spectrum licences, which make them have lifespan of between 10 years to 15 years, depending on the type of spectrum. After the lifespan and timeline, the regulator will decide whether to allow the operator to renew it or not.

 

Can you share information on the number of expired licences so far and the move to renew them with the existing operators?

That is something I cannot share with you because it is not meant for the public domain. However, should you write to the commission, indicating why you need such information, then the commission may or may not release it. But I can categorically tell you that there is no telecoms operator whose license has expired that is still doing business with the expired licence. The practice is that once a licence expires, then it must be renewed immediately.

Recently, NCC exposed some operators that were into vehicle tracking without obtaining licence from NCC. How come that  such operators were operating without licence before NCC got to know and clamped down on them?

Well, they were operating illegally, as far as NCC is concerned because they had no licence to operate. Since they have no licence, it means that they do not have the legal backing to operate, but some of them do so, and when they are caught, they face the law, and get prosecuted. The truth is that a thief can operate, even though it is not legal to do so, but when caught, he or she will pay for the illegality.

 

What is the development on those that were caught in the past that were operating illegally?

Those identified and caught have been handed over to the police for prosecution, and the law has to take its course.

 

There were issues about spectrum coverage for Close Circuit Television (CCTV) in Abuja some time ago, how has that been resolved?

There had been no issue on spectrum coverage for CCTV in Abuja to the best of my knowledge. The issue of spectrum that I know of was the spectrum that will facilitate communication between security agents and the CCTV gadgets that were deployed in Abuja.

What is NCC doing about dormant licences that are not being put into use by some operators, thereby depriving other operators, the opportunity to acquire such license?

There is no operator that has spectrum licence that is dormant. There are two categories of spectrum licence: The ones that could be harmonised, and the ones that could not be harmonised. Some are proprietary in nature and people think they are dormant and not in use, but they are actually being put to use in different ways.

NCC talked about implementing spectrum trading in one of its fora. To what extent has this been implemented and what will be the impact when introduced?

The NCC has finalised all arrangements about implementing spectrum trading in the telecoms industry. It has gone through public consultations and the NCC has published the final version for operators to take a close look at and study it and make their final comments. After their inputs, NCC will release the final document on spectrum trading, which will be ready anytime soon.