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O
nce upon a time there was but one
telecoms operator, Sierra Tel. Government owned and run, it operated a
fixed line network of about 12,000 lines.
As you can imagine, it rendered the kind
of service, which many Africans had come
to accept as normal. For many business
executives, it was better than nothing. For
businesses looking to invest, it provided a
ready platform from which to launch serious services, and the 2nd mobile operator
to take root in the country rode on the
back of the national operator to extend its
voice services to the rural areas - a crude
form of what is now commonly known
and accepted as collocation. It looked like
a win-win situation. Limited network
coverage for Sierra Tel and the mobile
operator was able to reach the hinterland
with reduced capital costs. The ultimate
winner, however, was the consumer, who
was now able to call hitherto unreachable areas and spend less on vehicular
transportation and travel risk to reach acquaintances. Imagine for a moment if the
government owned and run Sierra Tel had
refused to agree to the collocation arrangement…
Out Of the Blue-Blue Sky Came a Very
Strange Idea
In 2008, the (by then) largest telecoms
mobile operator struggled over a particular territory. There was no mobile coverage in Koinadugu. The area was mountainous and it was difficult to install masts,
which would shake hands with others.
The problem seemed intractable. Average time to put up a cell site was running
at 150 days. For this particular site there
didn’t even seem to be a light at the end
of the tunnel. This might have been an
area of potential interest for the then president, now late former president Ahmed
Tejan Kabba. Might there be some value
to putting pressure on a private sector
player to bring mobile services to an area
of interest to the President? Or is there
an overwhelming and compelling reason
for the Telco to operate in this area (i.e.
population, spending power, inaccessibility of the area, and potential minutes of
use)? We don’t really know. However a
combination of compelling factors drove
the Telco to strategy sessions to find a solution to the inaccessibility of Koinadugu.
Out of the blue-blue sky came a very
strange idea, after all the traditional routes
had failed.
W
hy not go the VSAT route – surely
that would by-pass all the mountains and still achieve the desired result…
it sounded crazy, but it worked, and
suddenly the average time to market for
constructing cell sites was down to a few
weeks…from an average of 150 days.
Telecom services grew within twelve years
from basic voice and SMS services to 3
and 4G services. In part due to the efforts
of telecoms regulator NATCOM and its
former Chairman Siray Timbo, a relative
novice to telecoms who utilized expert
advice to make inroads in driving innovation within the sector. NATCOM was
helped in part by reforms in public sector financial management, as well as the
ability to generate revenue not just from
fees but also from services to government.
NATCOM’s fees have been controversial
sometimes, and some players even say
they are sometimes not sure how much of
the fees are official, but things are getting
done and the public can see results. People
Parliament Meetings (informal consumer
gatherings) often concentrate on service
quality and reduction in airtime charges,
and NATCOM tries to rise to the challenge, walking a tight rope between dictating rates and demonstrating fair market
principles.
Despite the Simultaneous Growth and
Shrink In the Number of Mobile and
Telephone Companies, the Phone Services Remain Sub-Optimal
A
s at May of 2014, the African Development Bank agreed to provide a
US$10 million grant to further improve
public financial management in Sierra
Leone, being committed to good governance and tackling corruption to build a
stronger economy and encourage shared
economic growth. This new program will
concentrate on improving value for money in procurement and maintaining fiscal
discipline and budget credibility.
2014 to 2017 can be marked as radical
and transformative in the history of Sierra
Leone if the growing revenues from industry succeed in creating investment opportunities. In this regard, the public sector
role in engendering economic transformation through and with the private sector
will be enhanced.
Despite the simultaneous growth and
shrink in the number of mobile and telephone companies, the phone services
remain sub-optimal. However, there is
marked improvement as the years go by.
These improvements would have been