By Fred Yaw Sarpong
Vodafone
Ghana, the second mobile operator in Ghana has escape fine from the National
Communications Authority (NCA) for successive 14 months, after the national
regulator found no fault against Vodafone on quality of service.
In
an interview with the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Vodafone, Patricia
Obo-Nai said primarily it has been through a strategic position to invest into
the network.
According
to her when Vodafone took over from Ghana Telecom some years back, they had
about 300 based stations and that was not enough to deliver the quality of
service (QoS) they wanted across the network.
‘So
we decided to invest into the business operation of the network but not just
our brand because we believe in the quality of service to our customers. It was
important to spend money to improve upon the network and today we have about
1,600 based stations spread across the country with about US$700 million
investment. I think this is a testament to the investment that we made,’ she
told the reporter.
NCA
has been monitory the mobile network operators in the country on monthly basis.
However, for the past 14 months and consistently Vodafone Ghana has not failed
any of the measure used by NCA. NCA measure the QoS of the network operators
every month across the country without the knowledge of the operators.
Obo-Nai,
the 2012 Best Female Technologist of the Year by Mobile World indicated that
they have been putting lot of money into their operation and have kept their
eyes on the network consistently. ‘We also put in a lot of monitory system 24/7
and also mimic the customer which is very important to us as an operator,’ she
explained.
‘Our
system within the network across the country behaves like the customer and that
made us get the first hand experience of our customers experiencing. That
really helps us to fix the issue with a team of great technicians around,’ said
Vodafone Ghana CTO.
She
explained further that because they have mind to remain reliable and be
trusted, she believe that they can deliver what their customers need with the
conscious effort to consistency keep investing in the network.
She
said that they have system within the network across the country,
where they monitor customer experience. ‘It is one thing in taken statistics at
the office and it is other thing for looking at what the customer experiencing.
So we really monitor everything and response accordingly,’ she added.
Touching
on some challenges specifically facing the network operation, Obo-Nai stated
that their challenges have been the cuts on their cables and theft. ‘People are
still stealing our copper and mix it up with the fibre. We run the mobile
network on fibre and when they steal the copper and cut them, it disrupt the
network. And we have construction works that affects our cables and it takes
time to restore and that has been one of our major challenges,’ she noted.
She
mentioned that the second challenge is that they find it difficult to secure
lands and areas to mount mast, even though they are willing to make investment
into those areas.
Before
14 months ago, they were rolling out the network, but there are some areas with
gaps they needed to fix them. ‘Therefore, what we were doing was that, once NCA
was texting and measuring the QoS, we were also rolling out the network. At a
point we realize we have put in so much and we can’t chose to relax but rather
to keep the consistency,’ said Obo-Nai.
On
co-location of mast with the other operators, she indicated that their first
option was to put up a mast with the other operators. But the difficulty in
dealing with the 5 or 6 operators is that everybody wants to build and expand
as well, so there is a limit to how much co-location mast can even take. ‘When
we have no access to co-location, then the next option is to build our own.
That is where the difficulties come in,’ she emphasized.
She
urged Vodafone customers to expect consistency and reliability from them. You
can expect that we have your interest at heart. ‘Although the system can fail,
our customers should know that there is a very good team willing to fix the
problems at the shortest possible whenever they are occurred. So we promised
them the best quality of service they deserved,’ said the CTO.
Vodafone
won this year’s best ISP of the year and Obo-Nai said it was fantastic
achievement for them. She stated that they were not meeting the needs of their
customers alone but also includes their corporate clients.
In
addressing the challenges facing the network, Obo-Nai said they are working
with the National Security and the Ministry to help prevent the fibre theft from
occurring but noted that it is also important from their side to put in place
system to keep the network perfectly in place.
‘So
we have put in place a decentralize team across the country and if we have a
cut, they quickly run to fix it. But more importantly we have found alternative
root for our traffic. So for instance, if we have a cut in one area, we find an
alternative to carry the traffic to keep the network up while we send the team
to fix it and that has really helped us,’ she explained.
In
terms of acquiring sites in some areas it is very difficult. The management of
Vodafone Ghana is introducing various innovative measures on how they will roll
out the network services perfectly.
She
said that within the 14 months they have had issues but what was important to
them was how quickly they responded to those issues and how they put permanent
solutions to those issues.
‘We
actually do not know where NCA will drive to, so our focus is to make sure that
all our network services are functioning properly,’ she added.
She
was of the point that, the significant aspect of the 14 months is that Vodafone
is the only operator not fine by NCA and they have consistency keep their
customers happy.
‘Usually,
NCA fine affects the moral operation of the network and as well as the brand.
When that happen it make us feel we have deliver poor service to our customers
and corporate bodies.
Previously, the poor service delivery and fine from
NCA affect us a lot. We lose huge revenue through this process, said Obo-Nai.
Patricia Obo-Nai has been in the telecom industry
for 15 years. She moved from Tigo before joining Vodafone. ‘I love telecom, which
come from a lot of passion. It is rewarding when others sees you performance
and recognized your efforts. We have secured the network leadership and the
priority to me is to maintain it,’ she told this reporter.
She promised to offer her best and put Vodafone
Ghana on the world map.
Contact:
sarpong007@gmail.com
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