| Advantage…Reltel!
‘Unified Licence has been our gain with extra 1m lines’
By IKENNA EMEWU
Saturday, March
15, 2008
When the face of telecommunication in Nigeria started assuming
a new shape years back, the fixed wireless lines came to the
scene first, and with time they acquired the extra impetus
to extend services in mobile phone lines.
But the coming of the GSM system was the big bang that really
signaled the actual change. The GSM system seemed to have
more benefit over the first generation private phones which
operated on CDMA technology. And that elicited a cry over
unification of the two systems. The cry was to the regulating
body – NCC.
At last it happened and there came the Unified Licensing System.
Reltel got some incentives that have propelled the firm forward.
First was the addition of one million lines of the 07023 class
to its wave treshhold by the NCC.
The addition has been a great plus to Reltel, and moreover,
the unification has aided Reltel to integrate both its traditional
CDMA and the GSM systems for a better service, and instead
of remaining fixated to only the places it can install its
physical infrastructure, it has the liberty to roam.
The roaming has enabled Reltel to extend its operations to
at least 50 cities, including those where it has no physical
structure for transmission. Now the biggest edge Reltel got
from the integration deal is the dual SIM handset it has rolled
out that would enable a consumer use another GSM line in the
same handset in addition to the inbuilt Reltel line. A step
ahead you would say. And that is also how the company’s
chief executive or Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Kenneth Aigbinode
sees it.
In addition to the innovations of Reltel to make telephony
a thing of delight in Nigeria, Aigbinode also noted that the
effort of Reltel to drive phone tariffs downward has achieved
results, which the company is proud to announce as its mark
of responsibility to the consumer.
Roaming freely
If you have a 01 area code you could not for instance move
your phone to a 084 jurisdiction and have the same phone work
there. So, we had that restriction for five years. That was
lifted when the NCC introduced the unified licensing and also
adopted a technology neutral stance.
Since the introduction of unified licensing, which has allowed
CDMA operators to roam their services across the country on
one network thereby becoming fully mobile and also render
services on a new range of numbers, we have increased our
interest in the investment sector.
We are beginning to make the impact we should have made a
long time ago.
This is because we are looking at two dominant technologies
that work everywhere else and compete with each other at par.
CDMA is the dominant technology in North America and parts
of Asia. GSM is the technology of choice in Europe and most
of Africa, but both technologies are making in-roads into
other technologies are making in-roads into other regions
where they did not currently dominate.
Got the bearing at last
Accordingly, I’m quite pleased that we finally have
an even playing field in Nigeria that allows us to complete
at par with GSM operators. The competition has been energetic
given the resources of GSM players and the advantages they
enjoyed prior to the introduction of the Unified Licence by
NCC in 2006.
In 2007, we acquired our Unified Licence, obtained our national
spectrum, assigned the new number range 0702-3. We got a million
of that. In other words, we have the capacity to create a
million new lines under the 0702 series.
We have to expand our network from about four to five cities
in 2006 to about 17 cities and towns in 2007. Because of the
power of transmission, we are ringing in more than 50 different
towns and cities that are also nearby, particularly in the
eastern part of the country. To the extent that we were the
network of choice if you were in the eastern Nigeria during
at the end of the last year during the Christmas and New Year
celebrations you would certainly agree that we have taken
a giant leap ahead. This is because we completely dominated
that region.
Have what it takes
We have the right technology (CDMA), we have the right licences,
the right people and our customers have been satisfied so
far. I think we have not seen anything when it comes to the
potentials of Reltel to meet the demands of the subscribers
as well as return value for money as we have always done.
And that is why we have remained the company to beat in his
area. I am not saying it’s not possible for others to
match us, but it requires a lot more investment in the alternative
technology to match the speed that we currently render. But
I said, we are not resting on our oars. We are investing further
in some advanced versions of the CDMA, which is the EVDO to
give our subscribers even better experiences on our network.
We have also had favourable mention at different fora and
our many awards over the years attest to the fact that people
like our quality. One of the latest of the awards to Reltel
came from the Thisday Newspapers which awarded Reltel the
best telecomms company of the year in Nigeria.
Your dual SIM
advantage
Unfortunately, depending on the size of your handset, it creates
a huge inconvenience for one to have to carry two, three handsets.
That is why we introduced a handset that has the ability to
take two different technologies. Technically, we call it the
dual-tech phones.
It is nothing like other phones that have been marketed. Other
phones that had dual technology do not provide you the convenience
of flexibility of receiving calls simultaneously on the networks
on the phones. So, this is the difference that we bring. The
phone we have introduced which we call the Reltel phone has
a provision for a Reltel SIM (I used SIM because that’s
what people understand), but the technical word for our SIM
is RUIM. We would be selling our RUIM which goes into that
phone and you have an extra slot for your GSM SIM. That way,
you can carry your CDMA SIM, around as well as GSM SIM in
one handset.
We are bringing in these phones at subsidized rates to create
this convenience for our subscribers. So, the default CDMA
network on that phone will be Reltel and then the GSM option
will also be provided depending on the subscriber’s
preferred GSM network. You’ll agree with me that this
is an innovation and I enjoin everybody to embrace and grab
this phone.
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