The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, has called on the Federal Government, States and other stakeholders to join forces together in order to achieve the targets set in the 2020-2025 Nigerian National Broadband Plan.
He was speaking at the maiden edition of a structured engagement with stakeholders of the Nigerian Telecoms and IT sector organized by the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) through his representative, the Commission’s Director in charge of Digital Economy, Dr. Austine Nwaulune.
Danbatta said, “it is obvious that both Government, the industry and other stakeholders need to aggregate their potentials and expertise to achieve these targets.
He listed some of the targets which he described as “ambitious” to include: 15Mbps & 25Mbps internet speed in rural and urban areas respectively by 2025, interconnection of 90% of all LGA’s by fibre and 70% Population penetration.
Others are, 100% of Tertiary Institutions to be within 5Km of a fibre PoA, 60% of all telecom towers to be connected by fibre, connection of 1 major hospital or General hospital per LGA via fibre, reduction of average cost of data to N390/Gb or less and establishment of at least one (1) local assembly or manufacture of smart devices as well as reduction of Right of Way (RoW) charges to N145/m etc.
Notwithstanding, he expressed confidence in the ability of the stakeholders to achieve the targets
According to Danbatta, the Commission on its part, has made some effort to pave the way towards achieving these lofty aspirations including directing Infraco licensees to commence immediate roll-out of optic fibre cables (OFC) as contained in their license agreements to all the LGA headquarters, finalization of the Spectrum Trading Guidelines as well as our collaboration with NigComSat to deliver more prime spectrum, etc.
“The Commission has already commenced some of this consolidation with the directive issued to Infraco licensees to commence immediate roll-out of optic fibre cables (OFC) as contained in their license agreements to all the LGA headquarters by giving them freehand to start from viable areas and gradually move to unviable areas while the expected counter-part funding from Government is being finalized.
“An equally important consolidation in the area of spectrum availability is the Commission’s finalization of the Spectrum Trading Guidelines as well as our collaboration with NigComSat that will make available 400MHz of prime spectrum for Next Generation Network deployment in the near future.
“Collaboration with State Governments has also seen the adoption of the N145/m or outright waiver Right-of-Way (RoW) by six (6) State Governments, although, here we must mention that more needs to be done by the States and Local Governments to ensure full adoption and cascading of the decision for implementation. This notwithstanding, the Commission will not relent in its effort towards addressing the issue RoW.
“The Commission’s regulatory thrust towards enabling National Roaming, approval of e-SIM and 5G trials have also aggregated the efforts of the industry players towards achieving the set target.
“Although, there has been a 3% decline in the broadband penetration from a peak of 45.93% in October 2020 to 42.93% in January 2021, which was largely as a result of the suspension of registration of new SIM cards in December to facilitate smooth linkage and synchronization of the SIM-NIN databases that will not only address some of the security challenges we are facing today but it will help us determine the truly unique numbers in the Country thus further guiding us towards achieving the 70% penetration target.