 Stanley Jegede, Chief Executive of Phase3 Telecom, tells Akin Naphtal how he is moving the company’ strategy on to meet both the operator needs. As operators evolve their strategies and infrastructure, the key, Stanley said is to be able to act as a trusted services partner and mother of all carriers’ of carriers in the West African sub-region and looking in to Africa as a whole.
Q. Tell us about phase 3 telecom and your vision for the company
Ans: Phase 3 telecom is a neutral fiber transmission provider which builds, operates and maintains a network of over 4500km in the western half of Nigeria and extending into the west African sub – region. At Phase3 our services include provisioning of E1, DS3, STM-1, STM-4, STM-16, 4x STM-16, IP and MPLS.
The liberalization of the telecommunication sector has inspired phase3 to deliver the much needed bandwidth and backhaul layer in Nigeria and the West African sub- region through the ECOWAS policy on the infrastructural development of telecommunication in the sub-region.
Phase3 is a NEUTRAL carrier of all carriers in Nigeria and the West African sub – region that can transport communications be it voice, data or video across Nigeria and the sub-region through countries such as the Republic of Benin, Togo, Ghana all the way to Dakar (Senegal).
Q. How are you managing the competitiveness in the market?
Ans: This does not apply to us, as we operate as a neutral carrier’s carrier, and our fiber deployment methodology is unique as the fiber is strung on the ‘Live’ Power Line infrastructure.
Q. What are the key benefits that fiber optics transmission brings to Nigeria telecom and other segment of the industry?
Ans: Phase3 FOC Network brings to the telecoms market in Nigeria and West Africa so many benefits. Our fiber optic backbone network infrastructure has numerous advantages. It is an undeniable fact that a good and reliable telecommunications infrastructure acts as an engine of economic growth and social development within a country.
One has to look at countries such as Malaysia, Korea, Singapore and China and you would understand the effect of a reliable fiber optic backbone transmission network. A fiber optic network comes with benefits such as speed quality of voice, data or video and in the end guarantees low cost to the end user. Real time broadband access is better leveraged on a fiber optic transmission network. Broadband is no doubt an accelerator of economic and social development in the world with applications enabling developments in sectors such as e-governance, e-education/ distance learning, e-medicine, utility applications etc.
Phase3 foresees developments in sectors such as the educational institutions in Nigeria and across the sub-region, also promoting the integration of west Africa by providing one seamless network thereby reducing call costs within the sub-region.
Q. What is Phase3’s relationship with Ecowas?
Ans: Phase 3’s vision is to operate one of the most secure and reliable fiber optic transmission network in Nigeria and the West African sub-region. To this end, Phase3 is leveraging on the fact that there is poor telecommunication linkages and infrastructure in the sub-region. This is where phase3’s relationship with ECOWAS comes in. Phase3 is collaborating with ECOWAS to achieve one of the community’s objectives of having a single liberalized telecommunication infrastructure through implementation of the INTERCOM II program me.
Q. Can you tell us in details your partnership with Alheri Engineering and what the public is stand to benefit, from the partnership, you also called the project a convergence in building the most reliable backbone that will create high capacity to end users, how do you tend to achieve this?
Ans: Phase3 and Alheri are partnering to develop about 14,000 km of aerially deployed fibre optic cable network on the power lines in Nigeria. The network will be a meshed network with 5 redundant paths for all routes. The benefit to the users of our network will be high reliability due to the ‘always on’ redundancy capability of the network. The network will also deliver high bandwidth broadband access to users all over the country, as well as enable operators to reach further than they can now which in return will grant access to mobile telephony and services to citizens in the rural areas of the country. I believe this is a win – win formula for all.
Q. Capacity building is a key area- how you manage that in growing your company?
Ans: At Phase3 our staff are very skilled in their respective functions. We have a strong corporate culture of providing training to our staff, both in-house and external training. We also encourage cross training among our staff members so that they can move across departments in the company.
Q. How much does Nigeria power issue affect your operations?
Ans: Phase3’s unique right of way provides an advantage in ensuring that our goals of delivering compelling, high quality and cost effective products and services that consistently exceed our clients’ expectations.
With phase3’s infrastructure on the high tension lines and located within the various sub-stations around the country,Phase3 have no power challenges, since phase3’s directly gets its power supply from the national grid. However we have also taken measures to ensure that in any case of the national grid failing we have back up power using battery bank inverters or in some cases solar panels. With this phase3 believes the challenge of power in the telecoms industry does not apply to us at phase3 telecom.
Q. Where do you see Phase 3 telecom in 5 years time?
Ans: I envisage phase3 to be the mother of all carriers’ of carriers in the West African sub-region and looking in to Africa as a whole. We will have grown exponentially and be a dominant player in the sector.
Q. What is your assessment on Nigeria telecom industry?
Ans: Nigeria continues to be one of the fastest growing markets in Africa with triple-digit growth rates every single year, It passed South Africa in 2008 to become the continent’s largest mobile market.
Subscribers have grown from almost nothing in 2001 to exceed 53 million as at June 2008 and expected to cross 77 million by 2013 with a penetration rate of 28% and revenue of more than $10 billion per annum.
With a population of over 140 million people and over 50 million subscribers, Nigeria still has a lot to cover in terms of infrastructure, over 40 million more potential subscribers which in effect means the need for more bandwidth.
Q. What is your view on the global financial meltdown and the telecom industry?
Ans: We believe we will have to weather the storm as everyone else. In the short term, operators’ income will not decrease due to the crisis but as companies and individuals cut communications expenses it will start to affect operators, however, the crisis will not have a significant effect on telecom operators’ businesses because people will not stop using telecom devices, the Internet or making calls due to the financial crises. There are other areas where the telecom operators might experience difficulty such as in securing capital. Operators still have to invest capital in infrastructure, and the global crises will have a direct influence on cash flow, and foreign investments into the sector might slow down or cancelled.
We have taken time out to look at our roll out strategy by focusing on only commercially
Viable towns and cities, whiles monitoring the effect of the crises. As the devaluation of the Naira calls for careful spending and prudency.
Q. Is phase 3 telecom socially responsible?
Ans: At phase3 we believe in investing in people not only phase3 staff but also invest in the public arena like donations to schools, donation to the grassroots in the rural areas, and also working with the government to extend access to broadband services to the rural and less privileged environments in the country.
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