Professor Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has explained that the exponential economic boost and new opportunities created by recent data explosion across the world were part of the reasons the commission made affordable broadband the focus of its 8-Point Agenda on ICT development.
According to Danbatta, both the global and local ICT market is growing exponentially and creating whole brand new and exciting opportunities and so, there is every need to make these opportunities real for all Nigerians.
He said, “Nigeria’s economy is strengthening by the day and the world is taking note. So we need to bring these whole new opportunities down here, especially for the young people who are already shaping the future through innovations.
“We believe that Nigeria has the potential to gain a global competitive edge in innovation. What we need is to work together to gain the extra momentum that is necessary and invaluable for the successful realization of our Vision as an industry,” Danbatta said.
“Broadband still remains the next frontier in the ICT industry which will help in the speedy transformation of the Nigerian economy, and this formed the basis for our 8-point agenda” he declared.
Meanwhile, to realise the plan, Danbatta told stakeholders at the unveiling of his 8-Point Agenda in Kano, at the weekend that the agenda would be achieved in line with the national broadband plan.
He said that the role of NCC in the plan is to drive broadband infrastructure, first, in major cities across Nigeria and subsequently in areas that have not been served with communications services.
To ensure faster penetration across the country, Danbatta noted that there was also an ongoing plan by the commission to licence five more Infrastructure Companies (InfaCos) to deploy broadband infrastructure to the rest of the country, following the successful licensing of MainOne Cable Company and IHS Communications as service providers for Lagos and North Central zones respectively.
Licensing infrastructure
“In the South, we have the South West, South East and South South zones yet to be licensed. Similarly, the North West and North East zones are yet to be licensed. “But I can assure you that the process of licensing infrastructure companies to deploy broadband infrastructure in the remaining part of the country is in motion, waiting to be finalized by the regulatory framework. I am confident that NCC will soon take the next step.
“It will be kick-started with the advertisement for interested companies to submit their tender, for appraisal towards providing broadband infrastructure in the remaining zones of the country. That is how we intend to increase broadband penetration from 6.5 per cent to 10 per cent, through this infrastructure,” he explained.
Free Broadband access
Dambatta informed the audience, “Time will come when the price for Internet will not only be affordable but will be free. But this cannot be realizable now because the infrastructure is not adequate.
“We are trying to encourage the operators that want to provide more infrastructure to join the market by providing them with incentives for entrance into the infrastructure market.
“If our experience in data services is anything to go by, the scenario that is gradually unfolding is data services, which is set to dominate the market in the foreseeable future.
“The telecom network support going by the demand is high but the capacity is very inadequate. The overall 8-Point Agenda is to ensure that internet services are affordable and that is why we hinged our agenda on ensuring that services are available, accessible, and affordable,” he said.
According to Dambatta, there is urgent need for Telecom Infrastructure Fund, which he said NCC is providing to ultimately facilitate the provision of infrastructure for cheap and fast internet services.
Drop calls
Frowning at the menace of drop calls, the NCC boss said that the commission has the capacity to monitor quality of service by all the service providers and vowed to apply the key performance indicator (KPI) rules in checkmating the operators.
“The drop call is one of the menaces of the poor quality of service in the country. There is a limit to which each call should not be dropped and this is applicable to all operators.
Quality of networks
This drop calls parameter is one of the KPIs for assessing the quality of networks, which the NCC has the capacity to monitor.
“We monitor within the required acceptable limit and immediately direct the operator to rectify it. Data on KPI is available and is also made available to operators to see how they are doing. It is happening now because of mechanism put in place.
“We are going to intensify monitoring of all operators waiting for days of reckoning and we are going to force them to address the problem. It can also result in sanctioning recalcitrant operators,” he said.
8-Point Agenda implementation
“When we will be monitoring the implementation of the agenda, focus will be on how much had been done and how much that remained to be done. We shall continue to monitor the implementation in phases. So, we have mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation of the agenda, which will take place in 2021 and 2022.
“This is to enable us to decide how much, we have succeeded in implementing the 8-Point Agenda and what remained to be implemented. The agenda is a five year plan and so, we will continue to make appropriate budget over the period,” Danbatta said.
-Vanguard