ICT industry has gone through so many storms —Olusola, ATCON boss

The President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON),  Mr Olusolsa Teniola, has said that the industry weathered some storms and got through a lot of compliance issues and is very much aware of government’s intention concerning the future direction it seeks to take regarding regulation, policy direction and pillars of focus. According to the  telecoms guru, with sources and magnitude of investible funds being a major challenge, the industry had to embrace a climate of uncertainty and doubt as to where any future growth in Average Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) numbers will come from.

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The Over the Top (OTT) section’s  threat, according to Olusola, is now something that the regulator cannot ignore for much longer and that the reality of consolidation is now upon stakeholders.

“We would like government to truly create an enabling environment whereby all multiple taxes are harmonised and Rights of Way (RoW) are unified to N145 per linear meter. It is absolutely a necessity that the government passes the CNI bill and ensures enforcement of section 4 of the Cyber crime Act that aims to protect telecom infrastructure across the country. There are far too many cases where different government agencies are resorting to strong arm tactics and shutting, cordoning off vital telecoms equipment and they are impacting our members’ operations with the resultant effect of poor QoS and loss of revenue.

‘Our association is working very seriously to address all these anomalies and we are hopeful of steady progress.”