Major telecommunications companies in Nigeria, Airtel and 9mobile, are opposed the transfer of an 800MHz from Visafone Communications to MTN Nigeria.
The operators on Monday openly argued on why the Nigerian Communications Commission should or should not transfer Visafone’s licence and spectrum to MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, with the .representatives of the operators said transferring the spectrum to MTN could result in a monopoly.
Following the acquisition of 100 per cent equity of Visafone by MTN in 2015, Visafone had applied to the regulatory agency for the transfer of its frequency and licence to MTN.
Although the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had approved the acquisition deal, it has yet to approve the transfer of the frequency and licence to MTN, even as 9mobile had gone to court to challenge the transfer of the frequency to MTN.
At a public hearing in Abuja on Monday, Airtel and 9mobile argued that transferring Visafone’s 800 Megahertz spectrum would concentrate 38 per cent spectrum available in the country on MTN and thereby give the company undue advantage to further dominate the Nigerian telecommunications market.
Chidozie Arinze, 9mobile’s head of regulatory affairs, said spectrum is a scarce national resource which cannot be leased to only MTN at the detriment of other operators.
On his part, Lucky Ubani, Airtel’s representative, urged the NCC not to allow MTN acquire the spectrum as such step would extend its market dominance beyond voice segment, which he said could spell doom for the industry.
9Mobile and Airtel argued that allowing MTN to get the spectrum in question will impede competition in the telecommunications market.
They also posited that MTN had opposed a similar move by a dominant operator in South Africa and wondered why it should go ahead to practise what it felt was not good for the South African market.
Johnson Oyewo, MTN’s senior manager, regulatory affairs and corporate relations, said the network operators made their conclusions based on presumptions and lack of data.
He said the desire for the acquisition of the 800MHz spectrum was not driven by selfishness but to help the country achieve its 30% broadband coverage by end of 2018.
“We want to help the Rural Telephony Project at large; it is Nigeria that will benefit from it.
“We see a greater good. We urge the commission that this assessment should not only be based on competition but also on the interest of the consumer and the economy; what that translate is that there will be a direct impact on the GDP.”
Oyewo stated, “The mobile data market, which is the relevant market segment for 800MHz, was found to be effectively competitive by the NCC in its ‘2013 Determination of Dominance in Selected Markets’ with no operator found to be dominant in this market.
“Given that the market is effectively competitive, the utilisation of spectrum resources in order to provide the Nigerian telecommunications consumer a better data experience and ensure that the country meets its national broadband targets should be encouraged.
Speaking at the event, Umar Danbatta, NCC’s executive vice-chairman, said the commission held the inquiry to get comments from stakeholders to enable it to draw beneficial contributions from their wealth of experience.
He said the commission is determined to provide qualitative services to subscribers.
