SEVERITY INDEX ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS OF OPTICAL FIBER COMMUNICATION IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF SOUTH EASTERN NIGERIA

Optical Fiber is a major building block in telecommunication infrastructure. Its high bandwidth capabilities and low attenuation characteristics make it ideal for high data rate transmission. Due to its advantages over electrical transmission, optical fiber has largely replaced copper wire communications in core networks in Nigeria and many developed nations. Despite the numerous advantages, they are faced with several drawbacks in Nigeria which include: difficulties in integrating it into existing communication systems, complex and expensive installation and operation, and poor implementation of underground cabling master plan. The objectives of this study are to identify and statistically appraise the problems of the optical fiber communications in south eastern Nigeria. The research was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, interviews with various telecommunication operators and Nigeria communication commission (NCC) personnel, and literature review were conducted. The first phase resulted in the identification of 17 problems which were subjectively grouped into four categories, namely: Governmental problems, man-made problem, planning and design problems and natural problems. In the second phase, Questionnaire was developed based on the identified problems and given to a randomly selected 23 NCC personnel and operators in the area of study. The relative severity effect of each problem was assessed and then ranked based on a severity index by both NCC personnel and operators. The NCC evaluated 3 problems as “most severe”, 7 problems as “moderately severe”, 7 problems as “slightly severe” and 0 as “non severe”. While operators evaluated 4 problems as “most severe”, 11 problems as “moderately severe”, 2 problems as “slightly severe” and 0 as “non severe”. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient formula was used to test the degree of agreement in the ranking between the NCC and Operators. It was found that the operators agree with the NCC on the ranking of the severity of the problems.