FACTS emerged Thursday that Nigeria’s telecommunications operators power their respective Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) with over 50, 000 generating sets in the country.
Already, the operators including MTN Nigeria, Globacom; Airtel; Etisalat; Visafone and tower operators including Helios Towers Nigeria and IHS Communications currently have 29, 000 BTS.
According to the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), in a document signed by its Chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, yesterday, the industry is a network of over 25, 000 BTS spread across Nigeria with over 50, 000 generators.
The Nigerian Communications Commission had at a forum in December 2014, disclosed that the industry was home to 29, 000 BTS and noted that it was abysmally low to carry the traffic on the various networks.
For effect, NCC declared that the country needed about 80,000 BTS to meet growing telecommunications service demands.
The Guardian checks showed that the operators now expend about N214.3 billion yearly on diesel for powering the 50, 000 generating sets.
Specifically, the BTS, with two generating sets consume N325, 000 worth of diesel monthly.
A top official of one of the telecommunications service companies, who preferred anonymity, told The Guardian that consumption of diesel by an operator’s generating set depends on the size and age.
According to him, a direct operator, like MTN, Globacom and others use a 15-20KVA generating set, while those on colocation run a 27KVA set, which are changed sometimes every two years depending on wear and tear forces.
On the average, he said a generating set consumes three litres of diesel per hour and 72 litres per day and about 2, 232 litres in a month. So, going by the current price of diesel, which varies between N140 and N160 because of the deregulation, it means that an operator spend about N357, 120 monthly and about N4, 285, 440 yearly.
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