Nokia Networks recently held a telecom conference to explore the road for connected Nigeria in line with the ambitious National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2013-2018.
The plan aims to increase broadband penetration from 6 per cent in 2013 to 30 per cent by 2018, and to cover 80 per cent of the population with 3G and LTE services as well as offer a minimum download speed of 1.5 Mbps.
About 150 industry experts representing Nokia Networks, operators, government, and IT companies, participated in the conference.
A recent GSMA report reiterated that Nigeria is a fast growing economy and the largest in Africa but has low mobile broadband penetration.
However, due to factors – including high access rates of over 50 per cent of the population (those who use a mobile despite not owning one), data consumption growth, a rise in digital entrepreneurship, and a large youthful population – Nigeria presents a growing opportunity for investment and innovation in telecom networks.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Executive Vice Chairman, Eugene Juwah, said the conference brought out excellent insights from various telecom industry players on how to achieve further mobile broadband penetration in Nigeria in line with the NBP.
He added: “The government is committed to enabling the operators to take the quality and coverage of mobile broadband services to a new level for the benefit of greater socio-economic development.
“We are confident that Nokia Networks’ commitments and advanced 2G, 3G and 4G mobile broadband technologies will significantly contribute in providing high quality mobile broadband services in our country on a par with leading services around the world.”
Nokia Networks Vice President and Head of Middle East and Africa, Bernard Najm, said mobile broadband infrastructure in Nigeria needs to be strengthened to significantly improve network coverage and speed across the country, including mid-size cities and rural areas.
“To help achieve National Broadband Plan’s objectives and drive the country’s socio-economic development, we are committed to providing operators here with our advanced 2G, 3G and 4G technologies, and global expertise in services to build and run the networks cost efficiently,” he pledged.
Nigeria is a priority country in the Africa region for Nokia Networks. It has an office in Abuja, and opened a second one in Lagos in 2014 to enhance delivery of mobile broadband infrastructure nationwide.
Nokia Networks is the world’s specialist in mobile broadband with more than 200 3G radio customers serving over one billion 3G users worldwide.
In addition, the company was a global leader in LTE with 162 LTE customers by the end of 2014, and currently holds the world record in TDD-FDD carrier aggregation with 4.1 Gbps.
Its status in LTE is recognised by Gartner which positioned it in the “Leaders” quadrant of the analyst’s Magic Quadrant for LTE in Q4, 2014. Nokia Networks’ 2020 vision predicts consumption of 1GB of personalised data per user per day.
The company’s advanced, scalable radio technologies coupled with professional services aim to help operators in countries with low Average Revenue Per User (ARPUs) meet the ever growing network demands in a profitable way.