In Ekiti, IT is on the slow lane
Budding IT Edge reporter Gbenga Sodunke writes from Ado Ekiti

ILike every other state in Nigeria, particularly the ‘baby states’ created less than two decades ago, Ekiti State is a mix of potentials and gross under-developments. There are phones but not up to 30% of the population own one; there are street lights in the capital city of Ado Ekiti, but power outages are more frequent than power supply, new roads are springing up but most of the roads are bad. Information technology (IT) is developing slowly in Ado-Ekiti. Expectedly, for a state that has one of the lowest financial budgets in the country with subsistence farming as economic mainstay, only little development has been made in IT.

Unlike major cities like Lagos and Port Harcourt where mobile phone services have been on the upswing since GSM networks were first launched more than three years ago, Ado Ekiti has had its own mobile baptism in very slow moving waters. Virtually all four GSM operators have established presence in the city but MTN has the largest share of the market and appears to have warmed its way into the people’s hearts as the best on quality delivery. Months back it used to be Vmobile. But Vee has had some turmoil in its network that not many would bet on its quality of service (QoS). For a network that was once considered the best in Ado Ekiti, Vee’s poor network signal even in areas where coverage appears strong with erratic behaviour in the last few months, has earned it a silent market wrath. MTN used to be held in suspect but since it expanded its infrastructures late last year, there has been improved signal strength and more stable connection on the network. Now, it is harvesting a new crop of subscribers and stealing those of its rivals. “It is a market with choices, said one subscriber who used to be lover of Vee.

Mtel has the lowest subscriber base in Ado-Ekiti. It could not have got more. Its service is often poor and frustrating. Network signal is rarely received anywhere. Out of the few masts available, only a small number is alive. Everyone in Ado Ekiti appears to know what M-tel problems are: Lack of funds for expansion and the continuous gymnastics of selling it off to private owners. One attractive feature of the M-Tel is that you could call landlines for as low as N10, but then the landlines are not there. Unlike Lagos where there is a motley crowd of landline and fixed wireless operators, only Nitel, M-tel sister company is in Ado Ekiti. And then only few people have access to Nitel lines. There is a joke in Ado Ekiti: it is easier to build a space rocket than to get a Nitel line. Globacom is still finding its feet on the rough soils of Ado Ekiti and with MTN determining to maintain a lead; there is certainly war ahead for the operators.

If Ado Ekiti is waking up to the mobile phone, it is still a drowsy state for the Internet. There are more people plugging into the Internet to run their businesses and private affairs and there are more points of access then there were two years ago. But the snag is the cost of accessing the Internet is prohibitive even for banks. Most banks find it difficult and expensive to connect their branches in Ado-Ekiti to other branches in other states. Internet service providers (ISPs) are scarce here. They are all in Lagos and the big cities with large population and better support infrastructures. It would take eight times more to run an ISP in Ado Ekiti than it would take in Lagos, and it would take twice that figure to attain a break-even point than for an ISP in Lagos, one analyst said. Because the big banks must defend their claim to having national branches in a single network, they are forced to get Internet access at a premium price by using ISPs in other states or even other countries. The few cyber cafes who have dared to set up shop are worst off." We have to connect to an ISP, Gilat , in Israel because of the unavailability of ISP here in Ekiti,” said one network engineer at Friendlies Cybercafé. Friendlies is generally known as one of the most sophisticated cybercafés in Ado-Ekiti. Browsing in Friendlies is costly but is about the best anyone in town can get. Unlike Lagos where browsing could cost between N80 and N100 per hour and as little as N60 in some other places, Ado Ekiti’s starting point for an hour of browsing is N120.

One operator inside town believes improved support infrastructures such as good roads, constant power supply and concerted effort by government to encourage spread of IT would bring in investors, ISPs, more cybercafes and host of other solution providers.
 

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