Question

1. What incentives does a mobile network operator have to make ongoing, expensive investments in its network infrastructure? What have been some of the benefits to Globacom’s subscribers of the company’s investment in its mobile network? 2. Big data applications and techniques allow network operators to make use of large quantities of network- related data, which was previously discarded due to the time and resources required to effectively ana- lyze the data. What are some data points that you think would be most useful for a communications company to analyze when looking for ways to improve their network performance? What data points related to network activity and performance might be useful from a customer service or market- ing standpoint? 3. Do research online to learn about some of the other factors that have impeded Internet access for most of the population in Africa and other parts of the world. What factors besides the level of network infrastructure investment might affect Internet access rates in a given country?

Answer 1

1. A network operator makes ongoing, expensive investments in its network infrastructure so as to improve the quality of its network and ensure that uninterrupted access is available to the users. The investment is necessary to provide reliable internet access and uninterrupted mobile network access to the users.

Some of the benefits to Globacom’s subscribers of the company’s investment in its mobile network are better international connectivity, better network performance and eventually better quality of calls and access to high speed internet and data connectivity.

2. The data points that might be useful for a communications company to analyze when looking for ways to improve their network performance are data with regards to terminated networks, call drops, lost data connection, times and duration of a call or data connection. Data related to these areas will help a communications company what are the problem areas in their network and how can these problem areas be ironed out.

Data points related to network activity and performance might be useful from a customer service and marketing standpoint are data with regards to query response time and resolution time per customer (from a customer service standpoint) and available of improved and reliable network coverage (from a marketing standpoint).

3. Internet access for most of the population in Africa and other parts of the world remains impeded due to factors like low growth rate of internet adoption (this makes company circumspect about making large capital investments), availability of poor telecommunication system and infrastructure in remote areas and rural areas, and the high costs of accessing internet.

The other factors that might affect Internet access rates in a given country are factors like spectrum fees being charged by the government, license fees, tax rates, availability (or non-availability) of tax holidays etc.