By 
By Olusegun Oruame
Content not technology will be the driving force for a converged telecom and broadcast market in Nigeria, say regulators and operators as the sector inches nearer full blown multimedia services access.
With more than 70 million mobile phone subscribers and well over 65
million TV viewers, the market is ripe for operators to converge
telecom and broadcast services through one single optimized pipe, say
Director General of National Broadcast Commission (NBC) Engr. Yomi Bolarinwa.
The major challenge will not be technology deployment or funding but content provision. “The issue of content is being overlooked and a lot of people are failing to see the problem that content will pose in the industry. Convergence is a technology reality made possible by IP.
It offers optimize use of resource whether spectrum or technology. What is deeply lacking is content; good quality contents that project the reality of the local market or express our state of development as a people,” said Bolarinwa during an exclusive in his office in Abuja.
The market for content has shrunk and increasingly, broadcast media and the rising numbers of content providers are simply sourcing content from foreign shores to aid the continuous erosion of the local content industry. “Cockcrow at Dawn’ was a hit and that’s one example to prove that local broadcast could sell if they are well produced.
The increasing trend of bringing foreign soaps such as ‘The Rich also cry,’ ‘Second Chance,’ and the likes at the expense of locally produced soaps is not doing anyone any good. This is an area we believe regulation could address and we are doing something about it,” added Bolarinwa.
Convergence should expand access to content and the market for the local content industry but unfortunately, “it is making it possible for all sort of programmes to intrude into our homes or the small window of our mobile phones,” said CEO of Disc Communications (Discom) Bayo Banjo. Lagos based Discom provides landline telephony and broadcast services through several cable channels.
“Telecom is just a pipe and nothing more. It is in the broadcast end of convergence that we have the biggest challenges. You are talking of an industry that is traditionally held to be a social service and where you could impact significantly on the mindset of the people.
All sort of foreign programmes go on air as TV broadcast projecting everything unacceptable to us as a people with our own unique culture; very soon these programmes would find their way to the mobile phones making the local content industry where we could exert some measures of influence irrelevant,” said Banjo.
The industry must focus on building capacity to ensure good content as the window for multimedia services widens through convergence. Operators need to address the issue of training the manpower that would carry the technology trend through.
“People make technology; technology in itself does not make anything possible. It is how competent the people are in managing or manipulating it that makes all the difference,” said Bolarinwa.
“The content challenge is not only about entertainment content but educational content as well. Many educational institutions have a good opportunity to provide e-Learning or distant education services through convergence. They are not more than a computer and mouse away from their students.
But the issue is how do they source and provide meaningful local content? Â They have to invest heavily in not just the technology but the people to get it right,” said Olu Alabi-Isama, Lagos based telecom engineer.
Nigeria ‘s regulatory direction is heading towards convergence with plans by government to create a single ministry for communications and broadcasting and converge spectrum licensing.
But the country would have to create official policy thrust and invest in content development to enrich its own converged environment as ‘the Chinese and Indians have done through deliberate policy and affirmative actions to ensure that they are reckoned on globally within the context of content provision,” said Nasiru Umar, an Abuja based software developer with educational applications for secondary school students.
