That NITEL strike and the SAT 3 implication

Oluwaseun Ayantokun, Lagos

John Odey, Information MinisterWHEN the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) workers went on strike recently, things were not at ease. It was not their staying off work that really posed any difficulty. Of course, that was not the first time they had gone on strike over one labour issue or the other. In fact, the industrial action would have been meaningless if they had not gone to switch off the communication super highway cable that connects the country to other parts of the world called SAT 3.

Prior to the strike action embarked upon by the workers owed about five-month salaries, Tele-Info had gone round some of the offices of the troubled first national carrier of Nigeria .

Its discovery was not far from expectation: people that are supposed to be found there doing one thing or the other were nowhere to be found. One of the security men met on duty at the TBS premises of NITEL said there was no way they could continue to come to work when they did not have enough to feed their family much less for transportation to an office that had denied them their normal daily life.

According to him, “if someone keeps coming to work when his salary is not being paid, he should be investigated and tried. We need to know the source of his sustenance if he is not a thief.” The strike issue has been resolved somehow. But among those that are wishing that the situation does not come up again are the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who lost millions of naira while the strike lasted. “There is nothing we can do for now.

But we are already negotiating with them so we could have some concession from them. And if we can get an alternative, we restore service,” said Mr Charles Anudu, MD, Swift Networks Ltd, said. His company was not the only ISP hit by the strike. Many others hooked on to the South Atlantic Submarine Cable through NITEL and their subscribers were also cried.

Why were they affected? SAT 3 is a submarine communications cable linking Portugal and Spain to South Africa , with connections to several West African countries along the route. It forms part of the SAT-3/WASC/SAFE cable system, where the SAFE cable links South Africa to Asia .

The SAT-3/WASC/SAFE system provides a path between Asia and Europe for telecommunications traffic that is an alternative to the cable routes that pass through the Middle East , such as SEA-ME-WE 3 and FLAG. The cable that consists of four fibres and uses Erbium-doped fiber amplifier repeaters and wavelength division multiplexing provides the only optical fiber link between West Africa and the remainder of the world.

So, when it was switched off by starved NITEL workers who wanted to prove they were still in charge of the operation of the company, the country was simply held incommunicado, so to say. The SAT-3 system together with SAFE was built by a consortium of operators that currently has 36 shareholders in all. The largest three investors in SAT-3/WASC were (in order) TCI, a subsidiary of AT&T (U.S.A.); France Telecom (France); and VSNL ( India , Singapore ). The 11 African shareholders are (in alphabetical order): Angola Telecom, Camtel, Cote d’Ivoire Telecom, Ghana Telecom, Maroc Telecom, NITEL, OPT Benin, OPT Gabon, Sonatel, Telecom Namibia and Telkom South Africa. It began operations in 2001, providing the first links to Europe for West African internet users and, for South Africans, taking up service from SAT-2 which was reaching maximum capacity. SAT-2 had been brought into service in the early 1990s as a replacement for the original undersea cable SAT-1 which was constructed in the 1960s.

But for how long will telecoms business men and women who depend on NITEL”s way continue to have their hearts in their mouths in view of the fact that the company is in comatose, even so that there is no assurance that workers issue will not surface again?

The problem of NITEL is yet to be resolved. Early in the year, the government said it cancelled the sale of the 51 per cent stake in the company to Transcorp because the later failed to usher in the expected turnaround there. A laughable action: the question is what did the government that holds the 49 per cent stake do to ensure that the telecoms company live during the time of Transcorp’s failure? Little wonder then that the government systematically reversed itself by directing later, after discussions, that the status quo ante be maintained till a core investor that will own 51 per cent share comes forward. The search is still on, though Vodacom of South Africa is being muted to have indicated interest and that a deal is most likely.

Things are not really in place as Tele-Info gathered that the management of Transcorp are not really doing enough to serve those that are paying so much for the service of SAT 3. “We have to fuel the generators at NITEL’s Exchage at Saka Tinubu in Victoria Island and ensure the security of the place. We are doing the same thing for other service centres in Lagos so that our business is not affected,” said an executive of one of the PTOs riding on NITEL connectivity. Another NITEL customer added that they had to do that since they now have all the previous customers of NITEL.And NITEL currently enjoys a monopoly in the country just as it does together with other members of the 10 shareholders on the continent.

Apart from the problem that has bred uncertainty, prices for SAT-3 bandwidth in Nigeria and other African countries it serves are high: between $4,500 and $12,000 per Mbit/s per month, over 50 times greater than bandwidth prices in the U.S. This is due in part because operators have monopoly control of access. The lowest rates occur in Ghana , where the Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) organized a two year negotiation with and court fight against Ghana Telecom.

Writing on the issue, Mongameli Jabavu, in an online publication noted that industry analysts who have said that the monopoly that is enjoyed by the members of the Consortium is not in the public interest and has not resulted in affordable access for the citizens of the various countries. Africa’s telecommunications tariffs are quite high and are not affordable, and to empower Africa’s citizens SAT 3 prices must come down significantly. In most cases, the cost of calling from Africa to the developed world is significantly higher than for other continents.

“Affordable access to telecommunications is crucial for economic growth and global economic competitiveness, good education and for the delivery of efficient government services. Furthermore, transparency on issues such as pricing and good corporate governance are essential to any arrangement concerning the future of SAT 3 once the period of national exclusivity expires.
“Many commentators believe that competition is likely to be one of the biggest drivers in bringing down the cost of connectivity for consumers.

This can only happen within an appropriate policy and regulatory framework that takes into account local market conditions as well as the absence of competition in the ownership and access to international gateways in many African countries. To be successful, regional collaboration between regulators and for regional regulatory authorities needs to be recognized and encouraged”, he said.

However, things are already taking shape in Nigeria as the second national carrier, Globacom which applied to join the SAT 3 operators and was rejected sometime ago, is now working assiduously to complete laying its own submarine cable that will deliver to the country the same service. When the COO of Globacom, Mr Mohammed Jameel spoke on the project in December, 2007, he said that the cable had been laid up to the coast of Senegal. So, there is hope on the horizon. The prayer now is that Glo will not waste time in completing the multi-billion naira project.