| LICENCE BLUES
It was wrong to pay $285m in 2001 but right to cough
out $400m for same spectrum in 2007– Belo-Osagie
By SOLA FANAWOPO
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
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Ndukwe
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Hakeem Belo-Osagie, the chairman of Emerging Markets Telecommunications
Limited, has sensationally declared that the United Networks
Mobile, the group he led to the historic Nigeria’s GSM
auction in 2001, thought it was wrong for them to pay $285
million for a spectrum licence at that time.
The United Network Mobile group, comprising Orascom and United
Bank for Nigeria was led by Belo-Osagie to the auction. Based
on their studies, they felt that a GSM spectrum licence in
the country should not be sold more than $150m. The group
eventually dropped out of the auction when they were out-auctioned
by other bidders.
The bidders include Communication Investments, a group whose
backers are reported to include Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche
Bank and Dresdner Bank, South African-backed Econet Wireless
Nigeria , MSI-Celtel Nigeria, a group reported to be backed
by two former heads of state and also including US-based Monarch
Communications and several private equity firms and South
African-backed MTN Nigeria Communications, while a licence
was reserved for Nitel, the state monopoly.
However, Belo-Osagie at the media unveiling of Etsalat Nigeria,
the operator of the fifth GSM licence granted Emerging Markets
Telecommunications Limited said that the United Network Mobile
group based their decision on inaccurate survey conducted
by various trans-national agencies in the country.
He said based on the survey, “it would have been wrong
for us to pay $285m for the GSM licence in 2001. But i think
it is right for us now to pay $400m for the same licence after
seven years. All the so called experts estimated Nigeria’s
mobile market to be under 10 million. They said that the per
capital income is very low. This has shown clearly that Nigerian
market is grossly underestimated. Nobody ever thought the
market is even bigger than that of Egypt and South Africa.
It shows clearly that the potentialities of this market is
very enormous.
Not only in telecommunications but also in banking and other
financial industry
Meanwhile, Belo-Osagie justified that choice of etisalat as
the operator of the Emerging Market mobile licensing in the
country. According to him, Etisalat has acquired a 40 per
cent stake in the company. Besides, he said the company had
proven record of performance in high risk environment such
as Sudan and Afganistan.
Etisalat has been the telecommunications service provider
in the UAE since 1976, and has built up a modern telecom infrastructure
and established itself as an innovative and reliable operator.
Etisalat stands 140th among the Financial Times top 500 corporations
in the world in terms of market capitalization, and is ranked
by The Middle East magazine as the 6th largest company in
the Middle East in terms of capitalization and revenues. The
corporation is the largest contributor outside the oil sector
to development programmes of the UAE Federal Government, and
is an award-winning socially responsible corporation. Etisalat
has also won accolades from across the region for its nationalization
programme.
Apart from enabling the nation with basic telecommunication
services, Etisalat also offers a range of innovative and modern
services that have served to position the UAE as one of the
most advanced nations in terms of telecom services. Mobile
users enjoy the benefits of excellent voice and data applications
like WAP, GPRS, 3G, MMS, Push To Talk, BlackBerry services
and others. Enterprise and individual customers on the fixed-line
network also benefit from services such as ATM (Asynchronous
Transfer Mode), Frame Relay, VSAT and ISDN.
The corporation offers fixed line services over the Next Generation
Network, and has been migrating sections of its users onto
the advanced network. The timeline for completion of migration
was the end of 2007. By establishing NGN, Etisalat will be
able to offer voice, video and data over one single source,
enabling true Triple-Play functionality.
In 1982, Etisalat was the first telecom operator in the region
to introduce a mobile phone service, and was one of the early
adopters of GSM technology, introducing it to customers in
1994. Since then, it has established itself as a regional
pioneer by introducing both 3G and MMS in 2003, and most recently,
the BlackBerry service in 2006.
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