Airtel Nigeria says it spends over N28billion monthly to buy diesel to power its over 15,000 base transmitter stations across the country even as other operating costs keep rising in the telecom industry.
Daily Trust reports that telecommunications operating companies (telcos) have been clamouring for tariff increase as operating costs mount daily due to the country’s harsh economy.
But speaking at a media roundtable in Lagos on Tuesday, Airtel’s Director of Corporate Communications, Mr Femi Adediran, said the company alone used 22 million litres of diesel to power its sites every month, amounting to N28bn.
“Let me make it clear that we spend N28bn on diesel alone every month. And our sites across the country gulp over 22 million litres of diesel every month. This huge amount we spend to avoid any downtime with any of our sites across the country”, Adediran said.
The Airtel Corporate Communications boss also ssaid the company had collaborated with UNICEF and the federal government to provide IT facilities and internet to 1,280 schools across the country.
Also speaking at the roundtable, Airtel’s Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Harmanpreet Singh Dhillon, said because video is the most used data services across the world, Airtel would deploy new state of the art ICT facilities to enrich the Airtel network.
In addition, Dhillon said the telco would now deploy solar in all its sites to cut down on diesel usage.
On telecom faculties vandalism, the Airtel CTO said the telecom industry players had written to major construction companies in the country to inform them of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) status of telecom facilities and that any damage to them by construction companies would henceforth attract penalties.
On her part, Airtel’s Director of Information Technology (IT), Kemi Ariyo, said the telecom actively used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to study consumer’s behaviour and tailor Airtel’s products and services towards them.
Ariyo said Airtel’ Tier 1 data centre under construction in Lagos would be completed in 2027.
When completed, she said, it would improve data services in the country and improve the economy.
Airtel’s Marketing Director, Ismail Adeshina, said Airtel’s 5G rollout would be completed across the country soon.
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