Some
host communities are resisting efforts by telecoms operators to repair
the telecommunications installations damaged by armed insurgents in a
series of attacks in the North in 2012, our correspondent has gathered.
Islamist sect, Boko Haram, had on
Wednesday, September 16, 2012 blown up telecoms base stations in Borno,
Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe and Kano states, which resulted in over 150 Base
Transceiver Stations belonging to telecoms service providers being put
out of commission.
The affected operators include MTN,
which has the largest number of base stations across the country and
consequently suffered the most loss, Airtel, Etisalat, Globacom,
Visafone, Helios Towers and IHS Nigeria.
Investigations by our correspondent on
Tuesday revealed that many of the damaged sites were yet to be put back
into service by the operators for many reasons, among which were general
insecurity and resistance by host communities who think repairing the
sites might attract further attacks.
“It is a frustrating situation. At the
current stage of development of the industry, it is not in our interest
to lose a single base station anywhere in the country, considering the
capacity deficit we have and the attendant strain on quality of
service,” an engineer with one of the operators, who pleaded anonymity
because he was not authorised to speak to the press, said.
He further said, “So, when you do have
this sort of incident where some of the inadequate existing base
stations are knocked off the national network, it is a very terrible
thing indeed, and the next urgent thing to do is to repair the damaged
sites as quickly as possible in order to ease the pressure on the
network.
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