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NIGERIAN TRIBUNE - Tele-Info Since November, 1949 Home About Us Contact Us Advertising Archive Saturday Tribune Sunday Tribune Wed. 9th April, 2008 Search this site Tele-Info Agriculture Business & Economy Health Lagos Life Letters Maritime Midweek Tribune Movie People Sports Tourism ‘Thuraya’s next agenda in Nigeria is telecoms solutions for rural areas’ Abdullahi Ahmed AliMr. Abdullahi Ahmed Ali, Country Manager, Thuraya, was on a business visit to Nigeria recently. During his chat with a group of IT and Telecoms reporters, he made known the plan of his company to embark on rural telephony programme in one of the world’s fastest growing telecoms market. He specifically said that the next target for Thuraya in the country is rural telephony and internet services. He spoke on some other related issues. OLUWASEUN AYANTOKUN was there and he reports: How do you assess the Nigerian Telecoms market? I think it’s very exciting, one of the most exciting in Africa, if not in the whole world. It is very deregulated. This is very rare in the world. Actually, there are many restrictions to get an operating licence in some other countries, it’s very hard, but I think the good thing that the Nigerian government has done was to make the market open for a lot of services, different technologies, with CDMA, GSM, Unified licensing, etc. I don’t think you can see all these happening in many other markets around the globe. It’s a very dynamic way of handling the market. And the good news is the rapidly growing subscriber base. I think Nigeria is a good market to watch by the rest of Africa to actually know how to handle their telecoms markets. That is why every telecoms operator wants to come here. I’m from the UAE, now you all know about Mubadala and Etisalat. They’ll be joining the race in the market. That shows you that the Nigerian market is still attracting a lot of interest from all around the world. What is the purpose of your visit to Nigeria? We have a regional arrangement. So, Africa is a region.You have many countries there. I’m the country manager of all the English-speaking countries in Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana and others. Nigeria is very important to us. In terms of volumes of sales, Nigeria ranks among the topmost since the commercial launch of Thuraya’s service in 2001, Nigeria has continued to be one of our topmost markets in Africa. We’ve been existing for the past 10 years, that was before our commercial launch. But we’ve reached a point in our operation in which we have to focus on individual countries. The purpose of my visit then is to actually understand what is happening in Thuraya’s business in Nigeria. We need to understand what needs to be done from Thuraya’s side so we can actually allow more people to use Thuraya. So, it’s about fact-finding, supporting our service provider in the country (Danisat) and also understand more the need of the Nigerian market. Thuraya was actually in charge of this market and many others in the world. With the growth of the GSM service providers here, you seem to have been challenged, what challenges do you intend to address? One of the biggest challenges we are facing is that Nigeria is a big country, it is a highly populated country, a big potential market for us. So, for us to make sure that we cover the whole of Nigeria, we’ve got to ensure Thuraya’s products and service are accessible to every nook and cranny of the country. That is a big challenge. But with the right distributors, with the right partners, service provider, we are getting there. That’s the major challenge. And over the years, we’ve learnt that we have to have regional representatives to reach everywhere. It is not only in Lagos and Abuja but every part of Nigeria. That is one of the conclusion we came to. My coming is also to understand which parts of the country need to have our dealers and distributors. So, it’s a challenge to us to cover the whole country but I think we now have an idea of how we can do that. What are the products and services Thuraya has? We have satellite mobile handsets, the data terminals, rural telephony solutions, solutions for maritime, GMPRS which is handset-based mobile internet, we have tracking system. We also have lots of accessories and value added services but those ones I mentioned are the major products. You have not been that active in this market until now that you just woke up. Are you not being pressured by the activities of the GSM service providers in Nigeria? Well, GSM is a fact of life and any satellite telecommunications operator understand that GSM is here. GSM is a good thing and Thuraya has never been in competition with GSM operators. They are there and our role as satellite telecoms operator is complimentary. We compliment services offered by GSM. So, we are not worried by the GSM operators spread. We love the challenge we have here to launch forth our business. Someone said Nigeria is going to be totally covered by GSM service. I don’t think that will happen soon. There might be one day when the country will be covered 90 percent or more, but I think in the next 10 or 15 years to come there are some potential segments of the market that will need Thuraya. So, we’re not really worried. We still have a lot of work to do, with the growth of GSM. We see it as a challenge but we are not really worried about it. What activities then have you lined up to really make an impact? Thuraya is specialized service. We do some mass marketing communication like advertising in the newspapers, on radio, etc. These are the usual things. I think the most important activity that we need to embark upon or lined up to do in Nigeria is a kind of specialized, customized targeted campaign to the rural areas; educational sector, to have direct contact with the stakeholders, customer groups. Instead of a national thing, we’ll do that a bit for grounding, but we’ll try to identify specific areas that are not covered and then do targeted campaign to reach them and meet their needs. If we can do it by radio, if we can do it by actually going there to show them the products, we will do so. So, it’s going to be more customer-focused campaign. What advantage do you think you have in this market? Thuraya gives you 100 percent Nigeria coverage. Well, you might say the price is a bit high but you are guaranteed 100 percent coverage. We make use of satellite telecommunications and that is sure for you. No GSM network can guarantee you that 100 per cent coverage. It also gives personal security with the GMS services, it gives you data services with the GMPRS, and gives you that possibility for making and receiving calls outside Nigeria when you travel without any roaming cost. You can as well use any SIM card in your Thuraya handset. When you are enjoying conversation with your friends or family, all of a sudden, there is network failure and you are out of it. You begin to wish you have something else to prevent that kind of break in conversation, that is where Thuraya comes in. Given the cost of a Thuraya phone, how workable is your rural telephony agenda that you mentioned during your remark? What people in the rural areas need is access to telephony and internet services. It is not compulsory that each of them should own a satellite telecoms handset. What we intend to do is to partner with a sort of entrepreneurs who are ready to make money in the villages, through call centres. We have the services and technology and we’ll back them up with all necessary supports. It will be 100 per cent uninterrupted telephony and internet services for the people. We are also speaking to governments, NGOs, corporate bodies to collaborate with them for the service. We need the support of them all to do it. 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