Smile Telecoms Holdings, which owns and operates mobile wireless 4G LTE broadband networks in the 800MHz band in Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda, has publicised its goal to offer clear voice services and achieve national coverage comparable to the largest 3G network in each of its current countries of operation.

The company has also announced its intention to launch its broadband network in the DRC in early 2016.

ITWeb Africa caught up with Michiel Buitelaar, managing director of Smile Communications Nigeria and enjoyed an exclusive discussion about the company's business in the competitive West African country, pricing, market requirements and longer term vision.

Paul Adepoju: How has Smile Telecoms faired in Nigeria so far?

Michiel Buitelaar: We are now in Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan and Port Harcourt. We just received a new round of funding ($365 million). We are now set to double the network this year, next year we will double it again. We are aggressively expanding this year to Asaba, Onitsha and Benin. Next year we are going in all directions to east, west, north, south.

There is a space for a high quality provider of internet access, the hunger of the Nigerian people for internet access hasn't yet been addressed as it should and I think that a rather small part of internet access in Nigeria presently is through 4G. There are still lots of Nigerians that do not have access to regular internet access – and of those who have access to internet most of them have to make do with 3G.

We see our position in the space of high speed, high quality internet access because one can be critical of the quality of internet access on the Nigerian market. Nigerian customers are critical of speed, they're also critical of availability and we think we can beat the rest of the Nigerian market on both.

Paul Adepoju: How would you respond to concerns of Nigerians about the comparatively higher cost of Smile Telecoms services?

Michiel Buitelaar: On the pricing of Smile Telecoms services in Nigeria, I get the point that some find us less attractive because of that. We provide quality, very high quality, and research has also shown that people don't always benchmark us against the right things, but if you calculate the cost based on mega speed, you will find out it is not so expensive at all.

You pay a bit for a lot of extra qualities you get both in speed and availability. All that said, we did recognise that some people will be inclined that they do want to have this high quality access to the internet, but they can compromise on a lower speed. This was why we came up with Smile Lite which is an entry level package for the people who we think are looking for very affordable entrance into high speed internet. We did address the cost concern as an approach to segment market.

Interestingly though, the majority of our sales is still in the original Smile package which many believe is expensive.

We are confident that we've provided Smile Lite to those that really wanted it. For example, we think that students are eager to have high speed internet but less money, but if you look at sales behavior of people and users, we have a very high output and there is a strong conviction among those segments to have the quality and pay for it.

Paul Adepoju: But Smile Lite is unpopular, maybe the comparatively low uptake was due to the fact that the targeted users don't know about it in the first place?

Michiel Buitelaar: I agree with the underlying thought. We should and we will explain the benefits of Smile Lite better. It is something we will do. It is dependent on something else which I'm not going to talk about now.

Paul Adepoju: What is the distribution of Smile users in Nigeria?

Michiel Buitelaar: They are mostly in Lagos. Within Lagos, Lekki is very big but it is not hugely different per city. Port Harcourt is bigger than we had originally thought. In all the cities Smile is doing okay.

Paul Adepoju: Even within the few Nigerian cities that Smile operates in Nigeria, there is no 100% coverage. Why is this so?

Michiel Buitelaar: Two things – I'm confident that concerning our expanding coverage we're generally okay and we can see that we are doing better than our competitors. In October we are actively rolling out densification which means in areas where we have capacity shortages, we will put well over 100 sites in those areas where we already are to fill it up and complete it. It has to do with capacity and threshold. But we are quite aware of such issues and they will be addressed with quite some vigor. My people are currently working on that.

Paul Adepoju: The mobile networks are still the major mediums through which Nigerians access internet in Nigeria. Do you see Smile catching up anytime soon?

Michiel Buitelaar: I think that over time, the majority of Nigerians (almost all Nigerians) will move over from 3G (Nero band) quality which is nothing, to broadband. And when this happens, it will be very big.

Paul Adepoju: What approach do you think would be much more effective for Nigeria to achieve its lofty broadband penetration goal?

Michiel Buitelaar: 4G is the primary means and frankly I don't think Nigeria has much choice. Putting in alternative infrastructure takes awful lots of time and is extremely expensive. My view is that there should be much more sharing of backbone, the regulator should make access to the big pipes much easier in order to make open access to be faster, the regulator should make more spectrum available and they should just let the mobile operators do their work because sometimes they can intervene with subsidies, but I do think those mobile rollouts would bring Nigeria to a much higher level.