ATCON Berates Destruction of Telecom’s Fibre Optic Cables

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has frowned at the indiscriminate destruction of telecom’s optic fibre cables in the country.

The ATCON’s President, Olusola Teniola who made this disclosure in an interview with Business Remarks said the destruction is unwarranted.

Teniola stressed that the fibre cuts witnessed over time have become alarming.

Last week, according to him, one of the association (ATCON) members suffered multiple fibre cuts which affected services rendered to the company’s subscriber base.

While condemning this act by Nigerians, he disclosed that “whenever any optic fibre is destroyed, any calls or services from other networks will also be affected

According to him, the destruction of fibre optic cable has a ripple effect.

Teniola, therefore, pleads with Nigerians to cease this ignorant act as the impact will also be felt by them.

He noted that telecom infrastructures are critical national infrastructure because they serve as a solid backbone upon which other development/services are laid.

In his words, “what we also need to understand is that having Right of Way charges reduced or removed means that there will larger deployment of infrastructure.

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“We need to ensure and create awareness that infrastructure laid, especially the deployment of optic fibre, is critical to the development of our country.”

In addition, Teniola commended commending Kaduna State Governor for wavering the Right of Way as well as Ekiti, Imo, Plateau State Governors for crashing the charges.

He stated that the Governors have shown and proven proactive leadership in ensuring that RoW is placed at N145 per linear meters, which as a result will encourage more investment in the state and country at large.

Recall, early this year Business Remarks reported Airtel Nigeria announced it experienced 1022 fibre cuts in six months.

The telco said between July last year and February 2020, the fibre cuts it suffered has negatively impacted its services.

Accounting for why its quality of services sometimes drop, Airtel called on the Federal Government to urgently deal with the menace of vandalism, insecurity and insurgency, otherwise, the current spate of dropped calls experienced by some telecommunications consumers would continue.