By Mohammed T. Abiodun
On the 15th of February 2024, subscribers to MTN’s services across major cities in the country could neither make nor receive calls, or use data services on the network. The downtime lasted for about four hours, and the internet fumed with frustration over the disruption.
In a statement by Senior manager, External Relations, MTN Nigeria, Funso Aina, the network provider noted that “Our engineers are working hard to resolve with services gradually being restored in some areas,” and further explained that the reason for the service disruption was due to major cuts to its fiber assets across the country. These cuts had happened almost within the same time along three major cities in Nigeria.
Damage to fiber optic cables have become a major challenge for telecommunications companies in Nigeria. Oftentimes, these cuts are the acts of saboteurs, construction companies or thieves who steal the cables with intention to sell in the black market. The resulting damage to these telecommunication infrastructure is what we witnessed in the disruption of MTN’s services on the 15th February 2024. Calls could not be made—neither could they be received—and data services were down. Users were shut off the internet, which today has become the biggest facilitator of economic activities in the country.
The damage to MTN’s fibre cables is one example of an all too often occurrence across the country. Almost all the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Metropolitan Fiber Optic Network Operators and Infracos have filed several complaints with the regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on countless cases of damage to their fiber in various parts of the country.
Fiber optic network is undoubtedly crucial to the delivery of telecommunications services across the world. It is a technology that uses thin strands of glass or plastic to transmit data, whether telephone signals, internet communications or cable television signals. It is the fastest and most widely used medium of backhaul transmission, as it carries higher bandwidth which in turn provides higher speed, low-latency and low interference. Tens of thousands of kilometres of fiber optic cables are laid across Nigeria by these operators in their bid to deliver quality telecommunication services to their subscribers.
Nigeria is reported to have over 79,000 kilometres of fiber optic cables laid across the country. Though far from being sufficient to meet our broadband needs, these cables have been the subject of vandalism and theft over the past decade-plus. In 2023, the NCC stated that over 50,000 cases of destruction of fibre optic cables and other telecommunication infrastructure had been reported. The Commission’s Q2 report for 2023 noted that fibre optic infrastructure vandalism contributed to over 30 percent of all reported network outage incidents. A source from the regulator informed me that telecommunication companies face an average of a total of 1,600 cuts per month.
Reports from telecommunication companies buttress this disturbing trend. The recent one from MTN Nigeria notes that damages to three of its fiber cables were due to the activities of a construction company, gas pipe installation and bush burning respectively.These cable cuts are one of the major reasons we experience downtime in telecommunication services. Concomitantly they have resulted in low download speed, high drop call rates, poor voice quality among others. Users are affected and businesses that rely on telecommunications services for the delivery of their services cannot do so optimally. Take for example the case of banking services which we mostly conduct through our mobile phones today. When telecommunication services are down, banking services suffer, too.
According to a report, in 2022 alone, over N13 billion was spent by Mobile Network Operators, InfraCos, and other Service Providers in fixing damages to fibre cuts and other telecommunication infrastructure. In 2023, this amount rose to N14.6 billion. In the same report, operators in the telecommunications sector faced revenue losses amounting to N12 billion in both 2022 and 2023 due to customer compensation, site relocations and fibre resilience costs.
A source in one of the telecommunications companies told me that these challenges were sucking deeply into their resources and preventing them from making the kinds of investments they would ordinarily have been making.
“I think people are taking the resilience of the telecommunications industry for granted,” he said, “we have not increased prices of our services in years, despite the increase, I mean doubling in the cost of the raw materials we use to run our industry. Despite this challenge, we are now being faced with the issue of damages to our infrastructure. If we continue this way, we would begin to see losses and the market would no longer be viable. We would no longer be able to make investments as all our earnings would be used in fixing damaged infrastructure to ensure that we can deliver on our services.”
Indeed, these huge unplanned costs to fixing damaged infrastructure and fibre cuts could have been invested by telecommunications companies in improving their network services. This could come in the form of setting up more base stations, purchasing new equipment, employing new staff, laying more cables across unserved communities and maintenance of equipment. Not to mention the impact of down time on subscribers and their businesses.
Telecommunications operators have appealed to the Federal Government to do more to protect their infrastructure. They have called on the government to designate Telecommunications Infrastructure as a Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) protected by the law. This, they note, will provide backing to the law enforcement agencies to tackle the challenges of vandalism and theft of these assets.
Already, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr Aminu Maida stated during his interaction with media executives and correspondents that high-level advocacy was ongoing by the Commission with key government stakeholders to designate Telecommunication Infrastructure as Critical National Infrastructure.
About 16 years ago, the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) Bill was presented to the National Assembly for passage. It failed. That failure left Nigeria’s telecommunication infrastructure—from base transmission stations, to towers, to fibre optics—endangered, with attendant drops in telephony services.
Today, it has become a more pressing need than ever for the government to impress its stamp on legislation designating telecommunications infrastructure as CNI. Dr. Aminu Maida would need to pull up his sleeves and make a strong case for this. If he gets this done, he would be saving the industry he oversees an average of N25 billion in needless expenditure annually—moneys that would then be channeled into more investments in the telecommunications industry with corresponding improved service delivery by the operators.
But before achieving these victories, it is essential for citizens, who are in fact the primary consumers of telecommunication services and who see these services as second to having a meal on their table, to take ownership of telecommunications infrastructure around them. Residents along these networks should embrace a sense of communal ownership, safeguarding the facilities as if they were their personal properties. Where they see vandals destroying these infrastructure, they owe themselves and society the duty to promptly report to the authorities, and when possible, take measures to discourage such destructive activities.
Construction firms have a part to play, too. A significant percentage of infrastructure damage to fiber is due to construction work. It is important that the government puts in place and enforces stringent regulations for construction workers to inform telecommunication operators well ahead of time before they carry out excavation works around fiber cables on their sites. This will allow the operators to relocate their fibre or make alternatives for service provision.
These are immediate steps we can take in achieving uninterrupted telecommunications services, like the one seen on the 15th of February, 2024, with huge unquantifiable losses for operators and customers alike.
Mohammed T. Abiodun, writes from the FCT. He can be reached on tmohammedabiodun@gmail.com