Etisalat Seeks Partnership On Infrastructure

Etisalat, one of the leading telecommunication companies in Nigeria, has called for partnership among telecoms operators on shared infrastructure to ease quality service delivery.

The Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat, Mr. Stevens Evans, made the call on Monday at the just-concluded Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Congress and Exhibition in Lagos.

Delivering a presentation entitled, “Infrastructure Sharing: Maintaining Competition and Return on Investment Whilst Extending Coverage”, Evans described the act as a veritable platform for enhanced market development among telecoms service providers adding that that sharing of infrastructure would lead to the reduction of lost network deployment and delivery of services.

Evans stated that the venture would not only benefit customers in the telecom sector but ultimately reduce wholesale and retail pricing.

He explained that the reduction of pricing will increase accessibility of services and grow the market size which he said is particularly important in expanding availability of services to lower socio-economic groups within existing coverage areas and rural populations in areas which are marginal from an operator’s economic standpoint.

“From a macro-economic standpoint, infrastructure sharing reduces capital which can be used more efficiently elsewhere” he said.

Highlighting Etisalat’s position on the issue, Evans noted that the global telecoms company was keen on extensive passive infrastructure sharing revealing that it has already leased a significant amount of backbone capacity.

According to him, “we are interested in partnering on an extensive backbone with the hope that successful partnerships could lead to a more active infrastructure sharing”.

The Etisalat boss further noted that the telecom company, which he described as one of the largest providers of telecommunications service in Africa and the Middle East has unique products designed to offer a wide array of creative and exciting communication needs of subscribers on the network adding that superior innovations as infrastructure sharing would aid the sustenance of subscribers on the different networks thereby creating formidable telecommunication operations in the country.