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"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone" – Bjarne Stronstrup, Microsoft

"VoIP is legitimate", said Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, "and NCC is not against it". The regulatory stand by the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Communications Commission is indeed very pragmatic and an admission of the fact that when technology speaks, we all better listen.

The declaration by NCC at the Nigerian Telecoms Summit held in Abuja, October 2003, on Voice-over-IP (VoIP), an invasive technology that enables voice calls to any destination at extremely cheap rates, was joyously received by stakeholders and operators in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in Nigeria.

Technology is so pervasive and changing at such dizzying speeds that quasi-traditional business models are giving way. Users are daily getting empowered with tools and devices to improve the quality of their lives. Indeed there has never been a time in the history of the earth that we have had so many new and exciting technologies available in such great quantity, at such high value and at such low cost. Innovative startups all over the world are making technology solutions and equipment more powerful, and cheaper than previous models. Wherever technology impacts, the reality is of falling prices and lowering margins, whether it is for connectivity, mobility, storage, terminals, bandwidth, etc. Indeed, we are in the middle of a massive global revolution. With many technology companies creating solutions from within the largely unregulated (or unregulateable) IT industry, regulated telecoms operators are beginning to discover disruptive technologies that are threatening established business plans.

Take the voice telephony business model for example. ISPs in Nigeria have been carrying international voice traffic ambiguously on their data networks for years. But with NCC's recent declaration, nothing stops them from now exploring possibilities of carrying local and national voice calls as well. That would have been sacrilegious just a few months ago. Now competition to the Private Telephone Operator (PTO) is also from without!

Internet Protocol (or IP) and increasing mobility are the biggest twin threats (or twin opportunities – depending on which perspective you take) to conventional business strategies today. IP is the enabler of the Internet and all the applications that are packed into it, including VoIP. IP is changing the world and revolutionizing every business process as the platform upon which virtually "all things are possible".

IP is enabling the ability of all types of devices to communicate and interact with each other at exceedingly low cost. It is becoming the platform for all forms of human and machine communications. Any business that ignores IP technologies and solutions would soon find shortly that it is no longer in business.

On the other hand, mobility or ubiquity is driving the take-up of cellular phones, Personal Digital Assistants, Notebooks, Wi-Fi, etc. People no longer call places; they call other people. The power to communicate no longer now resides at a location; it now dwells with the person. Presently, it is in his palms and on his person. Soon, he will soon be his own mobile phone. Unlike elsewhere on other continents, the first telephone the average African will ever see or use is the mobile. He turned mobile right from day one!

The evidence for ubiquity in Africa comes from the mobile revolution in Nigeria. Annual mobile telephone subscriptions has grown by 503% since 2001, with Nigeria, from nowhere, emerging the fourth dominant GSM network in Africa and the fastest growing in the World.

Interestingly, Nigeria is not the sole proof of current trends in pervasive mobility. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) recently released figures for mobile subscriptions in developing countries. Wait for this: 46% of all mobile users are in developing countries! In other words, for every mobile user in a developed economy, there is a counterpart mobile user in a developing country.

There are several implications of this trend. First is that there is no longer a digital divide of any real sort in mobile communications between the West and the Rest of the World. Second – for entrepeuneurs, if the world's population is going mobile, and your business is not, you will soon lose your customers. Business must have delivery channels and service applications of processes that can reach the mobile user without the need for him to be physically present at a service point.

New technologies are like locust invasions, they are so disruptive in their sweep that they leave the business landscape barely recognizable afterwards.

In Nigeria, as in many other African countries, the days of queuing for hours sweating in order to make a 1-minute call at a public payphone booth now appear like centuries ago. No one likewise remembers the paging companies that were the brides of the moment just a decade ago. Who knows, maybe in another decade no one will remember the GSM companies that are the brides of this moment.

When technology speaks, will you listen?


Contributed By:

Fola Odufuwa

Fola Odufuwa is the Executive Director of eShekels Limited, one of Africa's foremost technology research firms based in Lagos, Nigeria. This article is published with the written approval of the author.

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