ABUJA (Sundiata Post) – As several African countries are taking actions towards provision of broadband services to make it available, accessible and affordable for the citizens of the continent, thereby impacting positively to their national economies, Nigeria has set a target of 30 percent for broadband penetration in 2018, against the current 10 per cent penetration across the country.
In a statement sent to Sundiata Post, Prof Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communicaions Commission, (NCC), said the commission has already outlined plans to achieve this target, which include the licensing of fibre infrastructure providers in the remaining five geopolitical zones of South West, South East, South South, North West, and NorthEast.
According to Prof Garba Danbatta “Two companies are already licensed for North Central and Lagos, which is considered a zone on its own right as the commercial capital of this country with huge demands for telecom services. We have successfully sold some slots of frequencies in the 2.6GHz Spectrum Band, and will continue to commit efforts towards efficient management of resources to achieve the various targets expanding the frontiers of broadband and improving the telecom sector.”
The Commission, while emphasising the importance of broadband for future economic development of every nation, referred to the World Bank research that indicates that, “for high-income countries, a 10-percentage-point rise in broadband penetration adds a 1.21-percentage point rise in economic growth – or an added 1.38 percentage points for low- and middle-income countries. This is more than any other type of communication service”.
This is one of the reasons why broadband has remained top of the 8-Point Agenda of the current management of the NCC.
In a period where Africa is burdened by poverty and debts, telecommunications has become one of the key sources of improving the GDP of the African economies. Currently, Telecom and ICT contributes up to 10% of Nigeria’s GDP.
A recent report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has put the contributions of the telecommunications sector to the GDP at N1.4 trillion in the first quarter of 2016. Analysts see this as a positive indication that more investments, more deployments and more economic activities around the sector will continue to impact positively in the sector.
Little wonder the World Bank and the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, have made recommendations about broadband that cannot be ignored by any progressive telecom regulator.