Subah makes inroads into Sierra Leone

Information technology company, Subah Infosolution, is assisting the Sierra Leonean government to maximise revenue accruing from the telcommunications industry.

The company has so far sunk $8 million into the renovation of a dilapidated office building, procuring critical equipment and installations to facilitate the work.
Currently, all is set for the take-off of the company, which is envisaged to increase revenue collection from the telco operators in the country to the government  between 25 and 35 per cent by the end of the five-year agreement term between the company and the national telco regulator, the National Communication Commission (NATCOM) of Sierra Leone.

Regulator in Sierra Leone
The NATCOM is mandated to regulate the telecommunications sector in Sierra Leone and to ensure the growth and sustainable development of information and communications technology (ICT) in that country.
The commission, in performing its regulatory functions, is mandated to undertake capital investments for the purpose of acquiring telecommunications equipment and services and other necessities for the effective regulation of the telecommunications sector in line with international best practice for sustainable growth and development of that sector.
In line with those statutory mandates, NATCOM requested bids for the purpose of engaging a service provider to provide International Gateway Monitoring Services, and Subah Infosolutions Ghana Limited participated and won the bid.
What is expected of Subah
Speaking to journalists during a tour of the facility in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the Director of Subah Infosolutions Ghana Limited, Mr Kwame Redeemer, said Subah, per the contract with NATCOM, was expected to effectively monitor the quality of service in real time on international voice and data traffic between Sierra Leone and overseas destinations.
He said Subah was also expected to build and operate a non-intrusive telecommunications monitoring platform to monitor and report on all international terminating and originating voice and data traffic into and out of Sierra Leone and all domestic voice and data traffic within the territory of Sierra Leone.
Mr Redeemer explained that per the contract, Subah was, therefore, in Sierra Leone to help the government to maximise revenue from that industry in the form of taxes.
Collaboration with telco operators
The company has mounted a sophisticated equipment, including a monitoring screen for each of the four operators, a device solely meant to detect Sim Box fraud operators, one for accurate data collection, a standby generator for uninterrupted power supply, among other equipment.
Mr Redeemer said the company had been working closely with the telco operators in the country and had so far finished installing its equipment at the location of the various telco operators.
In Sierra Leone, there are four telco operators: Africell, Airtel, Sierratell and Smart Telecom.
“We have established connectivity with all of them,” Mr Redeemer told journalists during the rounds, adding that what was left for the company to commence operations was the collection of samples of detailed call records and be able to configure the logic in its monitoring software to identify which one was revenue and which was not “so that we can process and report the revenues.”
What is expected of the operators
He explained that to do that the company needed to engage the operators one-on-one, adding that it had already completed engagement with Africell and Airtel, which were the biggest operators and was still engaging the remaining two.
Mr Redeemer said the success of the engagement would trigger the readiness of the company to “go live”, explaining that once it was able to get all the information required, then the programming would have been completed followed by a test-run in the monitoring.
 Impression of NATCOM
A Commissioner of the NATCOM, Mr Frank Andrew Manja, who also inspected the facility, was elated that such a facility was going to be in place to maximise revenue in the form of taxes from the telcos to enable the government to expand its development drive.