Why Reliable Networks Keep Nigeria’s Creators Paid

Nigeria’s creator economy runs on something most people only notice when it fails: the network.

When a call won’t connect, a livestream freezes, or a payment confirmation hangs for 30 seconds, creators don’t just lose “convenience.” They lose momentum, trust, and money. The reality is simple: reliable telecoms infrastructure is the invisible payroll system for Nigeria’s digital content economy—from skit makers and TikTok LIVE sellers to podcasters, music producers, and online course creators.

A recent story about telecoms infrastructure expert Ibikunle Peters—who spent over a decade working across Huawei, Airtel, and 9Mobile—puts a human face on the work required to keep calls going through. His phrase for it is “keeping the lights on.” For creators, those “lights” are the difference between consistent income and chaotic downtime.

The creator economy depends on the same “call chain”

Reliable connectivity is a full chain of systems, not a single “network bar” on your phone. Peters’ crash course on voice calls doubles as a clean way to understand why creator work succeeds or fails.

When you place a call, a value chain kicks in: nearby towers, controllers, subscriber databases, and billing systems coordinate—fast. For creators, the same logic applies to everything you do online:

• Uploading a video is a “chain” (device → radio network → backhaul → core → data centre → platform).
• Going live is a “chain” (stable upstream bandwidth + low latency + platform routing).
• Selling on WhatsApp/Instagram is a “chain” (messages, voice notes, calls, payment confirmations, delivery coordination).

The point: creators don’t need to memorise telecom acronyms, but you should recognise that reliability isn’t magic—it’s engineering, operations, and constant monitoring.

BTS, BSC, HLR: the behind-the-scenes systems creators indirectly rely on

Peters explains the basics of voice calls using classic GSM building blocks:

• BTS (Base Transceiver Station): what most people call the “mast” or tower. It’s the local access point your phone talks to.
• BSC (Base Station Controller): coordinates multiple towers and manages resources so the network doesn’t collapse under load.
• HLR (Home Location Register): a subscriber database that helps the network recognise you, determine where you are, and route calls correctly.

Creators feel these components as lived experience:

• When you move around while recording content outdoors (markets, events, street interviews), tower handovers and coverage density matter.
• When a big event hits—Detty December concerts, football nights, or election season—controller capacity and network planning matter.
• When you’re trying to reach a client, close a brand deal, or coordinate a shoot, subscriber routing and interconnect performance matter.

A practical stance: if your income depends on reach, your biggest “equipment” isn’t your phone camera—it’s your network stability.

“Keeping the lights on” is what protects creator trust

Creators live and die by consistency. Algorithms reward it. Audiences expect it. Brands pay for it.

Telecom reliability affects three creator-critical outcomes:

1) Audience retention (especially for live formats)

Live content is unforgiving. If your stream buffers for 20 seconds, many viewers don’t come back. For TikTok LIVE sellers, that’s lost orders. For podcasters doing live recordings, that’s disrupted flow. For musicians previewing unreleased songs, that’s a broken moment.

What causes this behind the scenes?

• Congestion at the radio layer (too many devices on the same cells)
• Weak signal indoors or at crowded venues
• Backhaul bottlenecks (moving traffic from tower sites into the core)

Creators can’t fix the network, but you can plan around known pressure points (more on that below).

2) Monetisation reliability (payments and conversions)

The creator economy isn’t just views; it’s transactions.

• A voice call that fails can kill a negotiation.
• A WhatsApp call dropping mid “pricing talk” can lose a client.
• A payment alert delay creates anxiety and disputes.

Peters’ background in billing applications is a reminder that charging systems aren’t side details. For telecoms, billing is mission-critical. For creators, it’s the same: monetisation is fragile, and reliability builds confidence.

3) Compliance and national-scale coordination

Some connectivity work is about compliance—operators sharing required information with regulators and applying correct rates. That sounds distant from creator life until you remember: national processes ride on these pipes.

When the network holds up under pressure, commerce, safety, and coordination work better. That stability benefits digital businesses across the board, including creators.

The 68,000-SIM election deployment: what it teaches creators about scale

One of the most revealing parts of Peters’ story is the deployment of over 68,000 SIM cards to support Nigeria’s 2023 general elections through BVAS connectivity.

That project wasn’t about vibes. It was logistics, provisioning, configuration, and real-time troubleshooting under intense scrutiny.

“It wasn’t just about technology. It was about people, coordination, and trust.”

Creators can borrow the same lesson: your content operation scales when your systems scale.

If you’re running a serious creator business—multiple shoots a week, remote editors, brand deliverables, community management—you need operational thinking:

• redundancy (backup data options)
• clear workflows (who responds when something fails)
• predictable delivery (deadlines that survive network hiccups)

This is also where AI starts to matter.

Where AI fits: reliability is becoming predictive, not reactive

This post sits inside our series, “How AI Is Powering Nigeria’s Digital Content & Creator Economy.” Here’s the connection I care about most:

AI can’t grow the creator economy if the network can’t carry the load.

Telecom operators are already investing in infrastructure that supports AI growth—data centres, stronger core networks, and automation. But the more immediate win is this: AI helps networks anticipate problems before creators feel them.

AI in telecoms: what’s actually useful (and not hype)

AI is practical in telecom operations when it does three things well:

1. Anomaly detection: spotting unusual patterns (like sudden congestion on a cell site) faster than human monitoring.
2. Predictive maintenance: forecasting equipment failure (power systems, radios, fibre links) so teams fix issues before downtime.
3. Automated ticket triage: routing incidents to the right teams with the right context—faster recovery time.

Creators benefit indirectly through fewer outages, better consistency during peak seasons (December events, big product launches), and more stable upload and livestream performance.

A strong stance: prompting isn’t the AI story creators should care about most. Reliability and automation are. If networks get more predictable, creator income gets more predictable.

Practical playbook: how creators can protect output when networks wobble

You can’t control telco infrastructure, but you can build around it.

Build a “two-network” habit for business-critical moments

If you do brand work, client calls, or live selling, treat redundancy like rent—non-negotiable.

• Keep a second SIM (different operator) for calls and hotspot backup.
• Test both networks at your main work locations (home, studio, usual outdoor spots).
• For livestreams, pick the SIM with stronger upload performance (not just download).

Pre-produce with “upload windows” in mind

Nigeria’s network experience varies by location and time. Many creators get better uploads late at night or early morning.

• Schedule large uploads for off-peak hours.
• Batch exports and queue uploads when signal is strongest.
• Keep lower-bitrate backup versions ready (so you can still post on time).

Treat call quality like production quality

Creators obsess over camera settings but ignore calls—until a deal collapses.

• Use voice calls (not only WhatsApp calls) when negotiating sensitive details.
• If a call keeps dropping, switch to the other SIM and message the client: “Network’s unstable—calling you back now.”
• Keep short written summaries after calls to reduce misunderstandings.

For teams: operationalise connectivity

If you work with editors, managers, or remote collaborators:

• Define a fallback channel (SMS or email) when WhatsApp is flaky.
• Keep files mirrored (cloud + local drive) so a failed upload doesn’t block delivery.
• Use AI tools for compression and formatting to reduce file sizes without ruining quality (especially for video drafts).

Career angle: the “boring” telecom skills that pay well

Peters’ path is also a career map for Nigerians who want to work behind the scenes of the creator economy.

He didn’t study telecoms formally (he studied chemistry). He built skills deliberately: databases, Linux, troubleshooting, and people skills.

If you want roles that sit close to the infrastructure powering digital content in Nigeria, the skill stack is clear:

• SQL (billing, subscriber systems, analytics)
• Linux (most mission-critical telecom and enterprise workloads)
• Networking fundamentals (routing, latency, bandwidth concepts)
• Automation basics (scripting, monitoring, incident response)
• Emotional intelligence (because operations is coordination under pressure)

This matters for the creator economy because the next wave of growth won’t only come from more creators. It’ll come from more operators—people who keep platforms and networks stable.

Nigeria’s digital content economy has an infrastructure ceiling

Nigeria already has the creativity. The limiting factor is often reliability.

If you want more creators earning full-time income, you need fewer dropped calls, fewer unstable uploads, and fewer “network just disappeared” moments during peak traffic.

Peters’ decade-long work—across Huawei, Airtel, and 9Mobile—highlights an uncomfortable truth: every viral moment you enjoy sits on years of careful, mostly invisible work. That work is becoming even more demanding as AI-powered content, real-time commerce, and higher-quality video push networks harder.

Creators should care because infrastructure is not “someone else’s problem.” It’s your distribution engine.

So here’s the forward-looking question worth sitting with: as AI makes content creation faster and cheaper in 2026, will Nigeria’s networks be reliable enough to carry the next surge—or will reliability be the bottleneck that decides who wins?