Mr. Henry Stenson, head of communications at LM Ericsson Group in this chat with MobileWorld speaks about his company’s plans for Nigeria and the emerging markets, the evolving nature of telecom technology and what o expect in the future.

When four, five years ago we looked to see what type of activities we should involve ourselves in, what could create a platform where the customers would be interested in meeting us, we looked at tennis, we looked at golf, sailing, we looked at lots of activities. And when looked all through we came to the conclusion that the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) is first of all a global event, it passes all continents, and we wanted to have some kind of event platform were we could invite customers almost at their own turf so that we come to them with the whole products programme and we do that within the pavilion by showing almost everything we can provide telecom operators.

We have full product demonstration centre in that building. But in this case, sailing when we looked at it, it is much teamwork, it is hi-tech, it is something that means that you have to experience things and you have to use the technology that we do to support the event. For example, you can follow the race on the web and on your phone by logging into Volvo Ocean Race on the internet. This is done by Ericsson for VOR.

But it is only one example. We also use the technology on board; they can communicate with each others. You can send reports and follow the race as if you are almost on board. This time there is a couple of cameras on each boat and they send live broadcast on the boat using satellite telephony that we also do. The fact that we engage ourselves in this, we create a customer platform.

We can show all the products that we are doing and selling and in each habour and bringing in all the customers so that they don’t have to travel around the world to get to Stockholm to look at everything. And we can use the technology that we sell to show the events and to show the customers that this is something that you can do. We are discussing at the moment with lots of different customers, lots of different people.  Couple of years ago we had  a portal for Barcelona FC fan club that contained more than twice the number of people that Sweden had.20 million people. We did a mobile portal for them so that they look at the game and get the scoring using Multimedia Mobile Messaging (MMS). Through the VOR we are able to meet with customers in different ways. In the world there are close to 500 mobile telephone operators, through that race 440 of those visited us at least at one stop.

 They were represented by 4,600 people from different operators. Those guys spent on the average 48 hours with us. If you go to a trade show you are lucky if you meet them at all and if you meet them you spent 50 minutes. In combination with the demo centres, we have discussions; we have negotiations in some cases or start an idea with someone who wants to look at something.

Presence in Africa

Basically we do the same thing in all parts of the world. You can say that there are different needs in different countries depending where you come, what type of experience you have. In Nigeria there are some basic telephone systems that are on the wireline side and you can develop from there, you have some kind of basic telephone infrastructures you can use.

In some other African countries there is nothing and then we start from scratch with only mobile telephony. But basically this is the same type of product if we use it in Cape Town or in the countryside in Nigeria or we use it in Stockholm or anywhere else in the world they people who are left with the system are basically able to do the same things with their phones, their laptops or what have you. What is happening in Nigeria is the country is just at the entry phase of commercial launch of 3G. We are at the forefront, advising customers, offering consultancy services, helping them with the design of their network.

We expect next year there will be  a lot of business a long that line, improved quality for the man on the street, which is the consumer, it also means a richer experience for the network operators as well. Invariably, it is a unique time for the environment. And with higher speed and higher capacity people will be able to almost any service either on the phone or on the computer. And that opens up possibilities in different ways compared to what many people have been able to do.

Millennium Village projects

We have examples of our Millennium Village projects where we put out a new radio base station in the middle of nowhere, in the poorest of the poor parts of African and suddenly the radio base stations is full in a couple of days because people have phones and they understand how important communications would be. What we are doing is part of the prolongation of the cooperation with the United Nations.

 We just thought that if we can do something we should not only send money, we should use the expertise that we have, and we should deliver the things that we already do but add them to the areas where the operators don’t have a business case. Because it makes such a big difference in places where there are no telephones. There are examples where we do this in the middle of nowhere as I said where things just change because when you get connected it is a whole new world and you can do a lot of things.

Imagine if you want to sell a cow or you want to grow some kind of vegetables, you can check where do I get a good price or ask where I can buy things. We have two of such Millennium Village projects in Nigeria, one in the north in Pampaida somewhere in Kaduna State. The other one is in Kala, which is in Ondo State. With those villages for by the time we started there were even no roads that led to them. The government has contributed some parts. The UN has contributed some part and Ericsson also.

 We are working with the eighth Millennium Development Goal Initiative, a partnership with the UN. We will be providing the telecom network in partnership with the operators. In the north of Nigeria we are working with Zain. In the south we are working with MTN. we expect that once the network goes live, which is the final phase, the farmer, the cattle rearer or whoever is there will be able to use his own phone and go on the internet, to the marketplace and find out where he can get the best prices for whatever he has.

What it means is that the local farmer in the poorest of the poor place can get the prices the best prices in the world for his products. That means he will be able to send his children to school, he will be able to buy more food for his family and improve his standard of living. There is proof that our technology can work from that perspective and then there is also the issue that we are helping to develop our local communities.

Nigeria’s telecom market growth

It is the biggest market in this part of the world and of cause as such, it is important to us. But on our side I don’t think we should prioritise one country before the others because when you talk about mobile telephony what you here from our side is that it is important to get it in because it helps societies to develop. We know from studies from London Business School that if you increase penetration rate with ten per cent in a country, you push the GDP growth with some percentage units into eternity and that is important. We don’t look at Nigeria as being something better than any other country. If there are lots of people those people get lot of benefit of being connected. We are interested in getting every country connected to telecom services.

Phone for all by 2015

It is difficult to say. When mobile telephony started the projection for the world were 200,000 subscribers. Today we have passed 3.8 billion subscribers and that is more than the number of people that have the toothbrush. One say never say never but looking at this the farther we can get the more value for money everyone gets because its growth for everyone and I am talking for about people.

The more people that gets connected the more use and the more benefits will come out of the fact that we all are connected. Exactly how fastest it would come I think is a question of the combination of gross national product (GNP) growth and it is a question of the programmes in the countries we are approaching. From our perspective, we would love to have everyone connected by the year you have point out and I don’t see that would be a problem from the technology point of view, it is more a question of how fast can you walk, how much can you invest and how do you make sure that we reach and have coverage in all the areas that people are living.

And from that perspective that is one of the reasons we got into the Millennium development programme where we can add base stations in s