MTN extends telecoms services to Nigeria¿s rural communities

15th December, 2010 - 2:51 PM

Nigeria¿s leading telecommunications company - MTN, in living up to its brand promise of being everywhere you go, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei Technologies to extend telecommunications access and services to rural communities across the country.
The landmark signing ceremony which took place in Lagos recently sets in motion MTN¿s rural telephony initiative which, according to the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Ahmad Farroukh, will take growth and development in the Nigerian telecommunications industry to its next phase. Speaking at the ceremony, Farroukh said that MTN carried out an extensive survey and due diligence of Nigeria¿s rural settlements to identify specific locations where neither MTN nor any other operator had telecommunications services of any sort.
He said that the result of the survey, carried out by a combined team of MTN and Huawei staff primarily informed the selection of the 350 villages to be covered in the first phase of the project roll-out. More importantly, the research, he said, helped MTN and Huawei, its technical partners, to come up with the unique solution that will be deployed in this project.

The CEO said that as the industry market leader, MTN realised that there are about 35 - 40 million Nigerians today, most of whom reside in the rural areas, and have no access to telephony. This group, he said, are the target of this latest initiative. ¿Our goal is to cover every village in Nigeria. The first phase will see 350 villages covered before the end of May 2011 via the support of our technical partners, Huawei Technologies, while 500 villages will be covered in the second phase by the end of December 2011¿, said Farroukh. The first phase of the roll out, according to Mr. Farroukh, will cost the operator about US$40 million. He, however, added that cost consideration was key in the design of the solution, stressing that unlike the regular base stations; the rural telephony installations will require little human management. ¿A major challenge we will be confronted with on the project is the total absence of infrastructure and basic facilities like electricity, roads, in most of these villages that will be connected. We have designed solutions to some of these challenges. For instance hybrid and solar power will be adopted on the project¿, Farroukh said.

Despite the enormous funding that the project will require, Farroukh said that MTN is determined to bring telephony access to the rural areas which will attract other beneficial services to rural dwellers and open up the rural economy,¿ he noted. Engr. Olawale Ige, a Commissioner of the NCC, was present at the signing ceremony and congratulated MTN for rising to the challenge of rural telephony which he said has been a popular subject in Nigeria for many years, right from the days of the legacy operator.