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RELEVANCE OF GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION TO BUSINESS IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Telecommunication arrived in Nigeria over 100 years ago. At independent  in 1960, the  country only had about 18, 724 phone lines for the use by a population of roughly 40 million from independence, various government made  several attempts to increase the  number of lines in Nigeria. However, these attempts failed woefully due to  certain reasons,  chiefly amongst those are monopoly of this sector by the country’s public utility. Nigerian Telecommunication  Plc, NITEL and its  inept corrupt management. By the beginning of 1999, there were roughly 500,000 lines available for a population   of around 120 million Nigerians.

The present administration  of chief Olusegun Obasanjo broke the barrier of telecommunication  by adopting deregulation through privatization. This it achieved by auctioning  licenes for Global system for mobile (GSM) companies in January 2001 for $286 million each and further reserved a licence for NITEL. However, only two (2) out of the three (3) companies at the  auction, MTN Communications and ECONET Wireless were warded full GSM licences, the third a successful company at the auction, communication Investment limited (CIL) was refused alicence on the growth that  two digital mobile licensed operating – ECONET and MTN who embarked on vigorous  publicity drive to catch the large market in the country. Thus, the recent announcement by the operators of plans to commence operations by 7th and 8th August by ECONET and MTN came as  much awaited news by many Nigerians.

The journey to success in  Nigeria telecommunication milleu has been  long and tortours. Telecommunication facilities in Nigeria were first established in 1886 by the colonial administration. Between 1960 and 1985 the telecommunication sector consisted of the department  of posts and telecommunications sector was (grossly underdeveloped) in charge of the internal network company the  Nigeria  external telecommunication (NET) limited, responsible for the  external telecommunications services. NET provided the gateway to the outside world. the installed switching capacity at the end of 1985 was about 200,000 liens as against the planned target of about 460,000 all the  exchanges were analogue. Telephones  penetration remained poor equaling telephone  line to 440 inhabitants, well below the  target of 1 telephone line to 100 inhabitants recommended by ITU for developing countries. The quality of services was largely unsatisfactory. The telephone system was  unreliable, congested  expensive and customer unfriendly.

1.2   SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH

the significance of this research work are numerous, but I will like to focus on these:

(1) To enlighten the public on the  usefulness of globalization of mobile communication to them.

(2) To expand people’s view on the operations of the various telecommunication  services in the country.

(3)  It is also meant to teach corporate bodies the  relevance of GSM to their operations and business.

(4)  Its relevance to the society as a whole.

Apart from  the above mentioned significance of the  research work, it is also for the   general understanding of  ways and areas which GSM affect the business  world in the country. Furthermore, it penetrates  on the  emergence of  high profitability that accompany GSM communication in Nigeria. Most business and other opportunity that accrue to  firms are easily tapped into, due to the fact that there is a cheaper and easy means to reach and exploit them profitability.

The disadvantages were not left out in this work. The  tariffs charged by these operators are too high in Nigeria,  compared to the tariff of other countries in which they operated. Another strong weak side of GSM is that their poor network coverage to  reach people in the remote parts of the country. Most of these service providers do not reach for into some parts of the country which has been  hampering their services from been qualified as fully efficient. Another main set back of this study is the “network failure” syndrome. This is a common problem faced by customers of the PTO’s. There are several cases of network  fluctuation on phones because these service providers  are really focused on making back their  license fees, so they are majorly targeting their capital and profit while the customers are left at the  mercy of unsatisfactory services.

1.3    OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

The objectives of carrying out this research is exclusively for academic purpose. Notwithstanding, the objective also spread across its tentacles beyond the academic purpose.

Another objective of this work is to fully discuss the anomalies in the  telecommunication sector even with the  emergence of the PTO’S and try to suggest a lasting solution that will actualize the relevance of GSM communication to the business world in Nigeria.

The level of competition brought about is the telecommunication sector of this country is due to the  advent of GSM.

Another strong point  is how  the introduction of GSM has been amass employer of labour and also an  opportunity  for some people to discover their strength (GSM engineers).

It is also an eye opener to the  fact that the preceeding service providers before GSm, offerd little   or no service compared to what we have now. NITEL was the major provider of telecommunication service in Nigeria there was no competition so through people complain of the service they offer, but they still continue to patronize them.

1.4    DEFINITION  OF TERMS

GSM:-  Global system for mobile

ICT:-  Information and communication technology

NCC:-  Nigerian communication  commission

NET:- Nigerian external telecommunication

CIL:-  Communication investment limited

ITU:-  International  telecommunication unions

NITEL:- Nigeria telecommunication

IT:- Information Technology

ISP:- Internet service provider

GMPCS:- Global mobile personal communication service.

FWA:-  Fixed wireless access

PTO:- Private telephone  operator

SNO:-   Second national operator

FTS:-  fixed telephone services

LAN:- Local area network

SIM:-  Subscriber identify mobile

SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE (SMS) This allows  customers to send and receive text message via their phones. Alerts will sound on handsets informing customers that a message has been received.

INTERNATIONAL ROAMING  International roaming is probably the service feature that has the greastest value for international users of mobile telecommunications. It enables customers or subscriber of GSM networks to make calls to and from other  countries, across scores of GSM networks worldwide. Customers in Nigeria will thus benefits from the many roaming agreements already reached between the world’s GSM  operators. Visitors to Nigeria with a Gsm account helped outside the country will also be able to use their phones here during their staying.

HANDSET This is the common name used to refer to the telephone or better still the mobile phone.

TARIFFS These are the  actual cost of the calls made. This simply means  cost of airtime usage. For example N50 per airtime minute.

ACCESS PERIOD  This means how many days you can receive unlimited incoming calls.

PEAK PERIOD This means the time when many subscribers are accessing the network. The time range is usually 07 hrs:00:00- 18hrs: 59:59.

OFF PEAK PERIOD This means the time when fewer subscribers are accessing the network. It is the opposite of peak period. The time range is usually 19 hrs:00-23hrs:59:59 also 23hrs:59:59-04hrs:00:00.

PAY AS YOU GO A versatile cellular package that gives you freedom of choice and freedom of movement. It offers immediate access to the  GSM network through an access and airtime card that gets you connected quickly. It means that you are in control of you connected call cost. You buy the amount of call  credits and cellphone call cost. You buy the amount of call credits and  access time you want and pay for it in cash-before you make calls. This way you will never be faced will bills after your call.

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