“In Africa generally every site, even if connected to grid, needs to have pair of backup generators. This can be hugely expensive, complex and frankly wasteful,” said Kamar Abass, Country Manager for Nigeria and Head of Regional Accounts, RSSA for Ericsson. “However, the power consumed by our equipment is on a downward trajectory.”
“Nigerian regulators are insisting on infrastructure investment – coverage requirements are ‘baked in’ to licenses – so the mindset of operators is focused on physical investment; on RAN and on building significant transmission networks that didn’t exist in the pre-mobile world,” added Abass.
“Property rights aren’t enshrined in Nigeria as they are in other countries – land may be owned by families, with no paperwork,” continued Ericsson’s Country Manager for Nigeria. “Passive infrastructure has been a key focus for network sharing in Nigeria, but nothing is happening yet with active infrastructure sharing, and we think that’s a major oversight. Passive infrastructure sharing has the potential to halve the infrastructure requirement, and gives you capacity to densify the network and improve QoS, but the operational complexity of running a secondary power network means active infrastructure sharing is something Nigeria simply has to explore.”
Kamar felt that the intensity of competition in Nigeria may be preventing operators from opening a conversation about active infrastructure sharing, while many operators felt there might be a potential regulatory objection. “The only possible regulatory objection would be how to aggregate the spectrum when you combine two networks. Beyond that issue, we suspect the regulator would no have objection to active infrastructure sharing as it helps improve QoS.”
TowerXchange wanted to learn more about Ericsson’s Managed Rural Coverage. “As long as the top of a tower is at 10m then it can often give the right level of coverage in a rural context. Ericsson’s solution supports 2G and 3G (and LTE if required), with a satellite uplink opportunity, solar power, and a pair of standard 12v batteries that will power base station for four and a half days if fully charged if there’s a failure of the weather.”
“There is no need for microwave re-planning – we buy satellite capacity and manage the whole piece, so we can charge the operator an installation fee to cover part of cost of the hardware and installation, then Ericsson recovers the rest of the cost and a small margin from a share of the revenues generated.”
“The model is one of national roaming, and it will take calls from any operator. In reality local subscribers will buy whichever prepaid cards the supervisor sells. If you put it in a village where the community leader takes responsibility for security, if you’ve chosen the right person that security tends to be assured.”
“We think Managed Rural Coverage works in villages of more than 1,000 people, but there’s a new satellite that offers a lower price point. While the operator could claw back some installation costs from Universal Access Funds in certain markets, it’s a modest capital outlay: around US$5,000 per site depending on the situation and installation conditions.”
“From our point of view, the rural market is lacking investment,” said Gerry Collins, Head of Business Development at Altobridge. “I think towercos will put up more sites in rural areas if they can get into active infrastructure sharing, and if low energy equipment continues to reduce opex requirements.”
“In remote communities, energy and backhaul costs can make rural mobile communications uneconomic. Altobridge believe we have the best balance of energy usage (90% of our sites exclusively use solar power) and coverage with a 7-10km radius. We have an optimised satellite backhaul band that can bring the price down to US$300-400 per month.”
It seems that in rural contexts, coverage remains king. “Rural telecoms is a land-grab. If an operator extends coverage on their own, they can acquire most of the potential minutes, data and subscribers within the first three months, destroying the business case for other operators,” said Altobridge’s Collins. “I’m not convinced that building and sharing towers makes sense in these finite rural markets.”
“If you put our solution in a market town, traffic might increase four-fold on market day, and traders all need to have the local operator’s SIM card. So the key is for mobile network operators to be where people live, work, are educated, and where they trade,” added Collins. “With on network call plans, you’re going to persuade urban migrants to switch to the same network as their home village.”
