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Evans - Investment in Telecoms Engineering Will Boost Capacity Development [interview](AllAfrica Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Steven Evans, spoke with Emma Okonji on the company's plan to grow human capacity development in telecommunications for Nigeria, its investments in Mobile Number Portability, and service quality. Excerpts: Etisalat recently launched the Telecoms Engineering Programme for Masters' students at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria. What is the programme all about? The Etisalat Telecoms Engineering Programme (ETEP) is a one year Telecommunications and Engineering Programme for Master's students at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. It is being sponsored by Etisalat, in partnership with Huawei, a world telecommunications infrastructure provider and it has a five-year sponsorship window period, which could be extended beyond five years, depending on its success level. It is the first Telecommunications and Engineering programme at the Masters' level in Nigeria and Etisalat is proud to be driving the initiative. What could have motivated Etisalat into investing in Telecoms Engineering at Masters' level in a Nigerian University? Etisalat saw the need to build capacity and capability in Telecoms Engineering because it discovered that Nigerian universities do not have such programmes. People who are interested in furthering their careers in Telecoms Engineering at the Masters' level always do so by seeking admission in schools outside Nigeria and we felt that it is not good enough for a country like Nigeria that has the highest growth rate of telecommunications subscribers in Africa and the world. Today, Nigeria has over 116 million subscribers out of its 150 million citizens in just 12 years of GSM operations. Out of the 116 million subscribers, Etisalat, which is the latest entrant into the GSM market in the country, with just five years operational experiences, has over 16 million subscribers on its network, and the figure keeps increasing by the day. This is massive and since the statistics shows that Nigeria has the market for telecommunications services, then it would be a worthwhile approach, if Nigeria begins to train telecoms engineers at the Masters' and Doctorate levels. This is our interest, this is our motivation and it is our passion to develop telecoms engineering in Nigeria and create more resource persons in the area of telecoms engineering for the country. It is about capacity building for Nigeria so that telecommunications companies could be managed by Nigerians that have the right telecoms engineering skills. We have trainable people that can be developed to further boost telecommunications in Nigeria, which has the highest growth rate of telecoms subscribers globally. Why the choice of ABU from among several universities in the country? We specifically chose ABU for a couple of reasons. It is rated as one of the top three universities in Nigeria in Electrical Electronics Engineering, and if you take a close look at it, you will discover that Electrical Engineering is really the foundation on which telecommunications engineering is built upon. So in our search for a university that meets our criteria, we found ABU. Again ABU was very willing to partner private organisations and their management was quick to see the advantages of working with Etisalat in developing the M.Sc. Programme in Telecommunications Engineering. When is the programme commencing? I am glad to say that the M.Sc. programme for telecoms engineering in ABU, successfully took off with the current 2012/2013 academic session and it is a two-semester programme that will last for one year. The first set of M.Sc. students in telecoms engineering is currently studying at the university, and it took us 18 months to put the department in place, by way of equipping the department and making it ready for educational exercise. Since Telecoms Engineering at M.Sc. level is quite new in Nigeria, how did the university authority select lecturers that are managing the first set of students who are currently studying at the university? What we did was to first get the teachers that are qualified to teach Telecoms Engineering at the university, and we did that by sponsoring the training of some lecturers in Telecoms Engineering and they were trained outside the country. We worked with another university outside Nigeria that has good reputation in Telecoms Engineering and the university is Plymouth University in South West United Kingdom. It is a renowned university that is well known for research in Telecommunications Engineering and we sponsored five university lecturers to train there at the Doctorate (Ph D.) level, and they are the ones currently teaching Telecommunications Engineering at M. Sc. level in ABU. We want the course to be of high quality, and that is why we sponsored teachers that will train Nigerians in Telecommunications Engineering. Our plan is that as soon as they graduate from the M. c. programme in Telecoms Engineering, they should be readily available with competent telecoms skills to work in telecommunications companies. It is also our belief that as soon as they graduate, there will be ready job offers for them. This is our vision in Etisalat for telecommunications engineering in Nigeria. How was the curriculum for the ETEP studies developed and what aspects of educational curriculum do you think are vital to Telecoms Engineering? We have a standard curriculum for the ETEP studies and the good thing about the curriculum is that it was developed by three different educational establishments, which include Plymouth University in the UK, ABU in Nigeria and Etisalat Academy in the United Arab Emirate (UAE), which is an academy specialised in telecommunications training and it is the biggest academy and training centre in the Middle East. We had meetings with the three educational establishments in Abuja and after that they came up with a standard curriculum for M.Sc programme in Telecoms Engineering in ABU. We wanted the best curriculum and we engaged the best hands that came up with a standard curriculum that was approved by the Nigeria Universities Commission (NUC). Is Etisalat working with the Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) to accredit the Telecoms Engineering at ABU? Yes, we worked with NUC on this and got its approval and as I speak, the Telecoms Engineering courses at the M.Sc. level have been fully accredited by the NUC. The first intakes are already studying in the university, and the course is already up and running. One other good thing is that Etisalat's technical team is based in Abuja, which is not too distant from Zaria. So they can provide support from time to time as their services are needed. As part of the course programme, the students will work in Etisalat for some months, to gain additional practical skills in telecommunications. They will work in our Engineering and Network Operations Departments to acquire the practical skills. Which of the government agencies is Etisalat collaborating with on the ETEP project? We are working with some government agencies like National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), and they saw it as a fantastic initiative from Etisalat. We are working with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on it and we are also working with the Ministry of Communications Technology and we had always kept the Minister, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, abreast with the initiative and the development so far. We have their supports and that of the Ministry of Education for the ETEP initiative and they are very happy about the initiative. Apart from the Telecoms Engineering Project, what other project is Etisalat looking at in the Nigerian educational sector? Yes, we are also looking at other programmes that we can take up in the Nigerian schools. Etisalat is known for its innovativeness and we are looking at creating some innovations around Nigerian academic system and we have plans to extend our innovations to local and state governments. We intend to use our strength in innovation to adopt and sponsor more programmes in the Nigerian schools. How will the innovative idea translates into job creation in Nigeria? As a telecoms company, our role in job creation is significant. Etisalat has over 2,000 employees. But for the Telecoms Engineering Programme, it is very likely to create jobs in the country, but the primary focus is on capacity building and the creation of resource persons in Telecoms Engineering. We at Etisalat will offer jobs for the graduates at the end of their studies and I am convinced that other telecoms companies and telecoms servicing companies would also want to offer them jobs because of the acquired skills. The ETEP project is in line with Federal Government's policy on technology development. What other initiatives driven by Etisalat align with government strategies? Like I said earlier, Etisalat is known for its innovativeness and we have consistently created and supported projects that align with government initiatives. For instance, government is interested in broadband penetration in the country and went ahead to set up a broadband committee chaired by the former Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, and co-chaired by the Chairman of Visafone Communications, Mr. Jim Ovia. The committee recently submitted its report and the essence of the committee is to create roadmap for broadband penetration in Nigeria. Already Etisalat is involved in broadband penetration in Nigerian tertiary institutions. Nigerian institutions need full capacity broadband in order to have access to high speed internet connectivity. The ETEP programme could be described as one of Etisalat's Corporate Social Responsibility Programmes. In what other areas is Etisalat exhibiting this responsibility? We are doing a variety of things in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We are supporting the Lagos Business School with CSR centre for five years running now. The reason for this is that it is the main business school that trains business managers and career managers. Another area is in the merit award where we try to encourage students to take technical and engineering courses in the universities and we are offering them with financial support in terms of bursary. We offer bursary to over 300 students across Nigerian Universities, and the essence is to encourage students to take up courses that we think are relevant to the development of the telecommunications industry in the country. We are also working with the British Council in Nigeria to sponsor teachers training programmes in English Language, which we see as a critical subject for any profession in the country. We have also adopted schools in Lagos, where we rebuilt two schools in Lagos and furnished them with relevant learning materials and infrastructure. What is your view on Mobile Number Portability since its launch in April 22, 2013? It was a fantastic initiative from the NCC, and it is done all over the world. It gives telecoms subscribers the right to make choice of networks that they want to patronise, and I commend the NCC for the initiative and its commitment in ensuring that the service was eventually launched in Nigeria, in spite of the initial challenges. How has the launch of Mobile Number Portability helped in improving service quality? There is this erroneous belief by majority of people that the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) will improve quality of service. I will like to use this opportunity to tell Nigerians that MNP has no link with service quality and does not add to or subtract from the service quality offered by telecoms operating companies. If a network has congestion issues for instance, the fact that the network is offering MNP service will not address the issue of congestion automatically, neither will it help to improve the quality of its service offerings. What improves service quality is constant upgrade of networks as the subscriber number increases. The idea of network upgrade is to boost network capacity at a commensurate level with the increase in subscriber numbers. So what kind of network upgrade did Etisalat carry out on its network, prior to the introduction of MNP? We invested in our network expansion project and we had series of network upgrades in preparation for MNP to ensure interoperability of the service. Today I am proud to announce to Nigerians that our investments had paid off because the network is stronger with increased capacity to accommodate those porting into our network. I am also glad to announce that we have recorded several thousands of people porting to our networks and we encourage more people to do so because the network is strong and reliable. What is the current number of your cell sites in the country and how is Etisalat coping with the recent destruction of telecoms cell sites in some Northern parts of the country? Currently we have 3,500 cell sites that are managed by Etisalat across the country with a fresh plan to increase the number by another 1,000 by the end of this year. Apart from the 3,500 managed cell sites, we are also involved in collocation of sites where we share infrastructure in several other cell sites that are managed by independent cell site builders like Helios Towers and IHS. In terms of coping with the damaged cell sites in some Northern parts of the country, what we are doing is to restore the damaged sites in areas that are less volatile. For the volatile areas, we had to abandon the sites at the moment because we do not want to endanger the lives of our workers at the sites. Over 30 cell sites belonging to Etisalat were destroyed at the last count, and the ripple effects cut across over 60 other cell sites that are linked to the damaged ones, which caused disruption of service in those areas. We have however been able to reinstall some of the damaged cell sites, but not all, especially those in the volatile areas. Steven Evans BioData Mr. Steven Evans is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Etisalat Nigeria, a position he has held since its launch in October 23, 2008. Before he joined Etisalat Nigeria as CEO, he was the CEO of British Telecom (BT) Mobile and Director of Wireless Broadband at BT. Evans has over twenty years track record in the global mobile telecommunications industry. He spent 10 years with Cable & Wireless as senior manager in its mobile operations around the world. In 1991, he was appointed General Manager of Optus Mobile and spearheaded its entry into the Australian market. In 1994 he took the role of Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Bouygues Telecom in France, a position he held for four years, and during which he held responsibility for the launch of the business and the development of its operational capabilities. In 1998 he returned to the UK as Deputy Managing Director of One2One, a position he held until the business was acquired by T Mobile in late 1999. He was also the CEO of Dolphin Telecommunications, the pan European enterprise mobile operator. Later in 2004, Evans took charge of BT Mobile, where he launched a succession of mobile and wireless broadband services into the enterprise and consumer markets. Evans holds a B.Sc. in Geology & Mathematics from Reading University and MBA from CASS Business School in London. Copyright This Day. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). |