<p><em><strong>While plans have been ongoing for more than seven years to provide the necessary infrastructure to bring Internet connectivity to the last mile, no implementation has taken place</strong></em> <strong>By Oguche Timothy</strong></p>



<p>Desire
to ensure broadband connectivity in Nigeria attained a level of extending
services to the rural areas, the Goodluck Jonathan led federal government,
in ; 2013, through the Presidential
Committee on Broadband, ; developed a
five-year strategy to drive internet and broadband penetration and scale up the
nation’s broadband growth by 30 percent. </p>



<p>Seven
years after, the plan and
frameworks put in place to ensure the spread of broadband infrastructure across
the country have remained in limbo.</p>



<p>The
vision behind the Nigerian broadband plan seeks to accelerate high speed
internet and mass broadband access, and as a result prompt socio-economic
growth for the nation and prosperity for its citizens in addition to removing
barriers to expanding services to the mass market for deeper penetration and
adoption. </p>



<p>Nigeria, with over 200 million citizens, is a mobile
first country as communications are carried out by about 184.4 million
subscribers to telecommunication services on mobile devices.</p>



<p>One of the driving forces of mobile penetration in
Nigeria is the availability and affordability of mobile devices in the country.</p>



<p>Meanwhile, submarine
broadband cable investments by private concerns like Mainone, Glo 1, West
African Cable System,WACS and NITEL’s Sat 3, have a volume of terabytes lying
fallow on the shores of Lagos while the country struggles fruitlessly to
achieve last mile deployment. Broadband service providers have attributed this
to the inability of the Federal and state governments to harmonise the ;
Right of Way (RoW) levies that give operators access to deploy services. This
is even when “Broadband for all” is a concept that is catching on in many
developed countries. The National Economic Council (NEC) RoW guideline
stipulates N145 per metre for laying ; fibre ; network in every part of
the country. ; But it is observed that states have arbitrarily fixed their
own charges which range between N1,500 and N6000.While states like Rivers and
Abia, charge N1,500 and N2,000 respectively, others like Lagos, Delta and Ogun
charge up to N5840, N4,600 and N6,500 respectively. Yet, ; only a paltry
38,000 km fibre out of about 120,000 km of fibre network ; required for
pervasive coverage has been deployed in Nigeria.</p>



<p>Nigeria’s mobile phone Internet user penetration stood at
27.9 per cent based on estimates provided by Statista.</p>



<p>To support the increasing demand for Internet services,
the first National Broadband Plan (2013 – 2018) hinged on the ways to ensure
that Nigerians irrespective of their locations have unfettered access to
broadband infrastructure.</p>



<p>As of 2018, a total of six infrastructural companies were
licensed by the NCC, one in each geopolitical zone, as part of its strategy to
enhance broadband penetration in the country.</p>



<p>However, the last infraco for the North Central region
has not been named yet.</p>



<p>MainOne, got the approval in 2017 to deploy
infrastructure across Lagos State and had already announced plans to invest
N25bn to deploy 2,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable that would connect all
the local government areas, in three years.</p>



<p>Raeana Nigeria Limited received the licence for South
South zone, O’dua Infraco Resources Limited for the South-West region, Fleeks
Network Limited for the North West, Brinks Integrated Solutions for the North
West and Zinox Technologies for the South East Zone.</p>



<p>The Infraco model will ensure that the companies deploy
their infrastructure for a five-year period and provide wholesale services to
others to ensure that the last-mile connectivity is achieved and people in
rural and under-served communities are reached with Internet services.</p>



<p>Highlighting the importance of the broadband
infrastructure at an industry event recently, the Executive Vice- Chairman,
Prof. Umar Danbatta, said that the infracos had the mandate to deploy metro and
intercity fibre and broadband point of access with a minimum capacity of 10
gigabyte per second across the 774 Local Government Areas of Nigeria.</p>



<p>“With the development of Smart Cities Key Performance
Indicators by the ITU, it is imperative to have a pervasive and ubiquitous
broadband infrastructure across all our towns and cities to achieve the
objectives of making them smart,” Danbatta said.</p>



<p>He pledged the commitment of the NCC to ensuring that all
citizens of Nigeria had access to affordable broadband connection irrespective
of location.</p>



<p>This assurance, according to Danbatta, was based on the
digital transformation agenda of the Federal Government anchored on
availability, accessibility and affordability of broadband.</p>



<p>To ensure expeditious action on the broadband penetration
across the states of Nigeria, Danbatta added, “We have put in place Broadband
Implementation Committee to monitor full implementation of the Infraco Projects
within the four-year implementation plan.”</p>



<p>Meanwhile, the project, which has a Public Private
Partnership arrangement, will be supported by N65bn subsidy to augment the
capital expenditure of the infracos.</p>



<p>However, it was gathered that the subsidy arrangement,
which was ready one year ago is still waiting the approval of the Nigerian
President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).</p>



<p>The President, Association of Telecommunications Company
of Nigeria, Mr Olusola Teniola, said the expensive right of way, multiple taxes
and forex scarcity were creating bottlenecks for operators to expand broadband
infrastructure across the country.</p>



<p>According to him, access to forex to import equipment for
base stations and towers from other countries is difficult as the government
has not prioritised forex to telecoms industry.</p>



<p>“In terms of 4G in Nigeria, the situation we find
ourselves in is that over the last eighteen months, there hasn’t been any
significant investment in rolling out networks, including 4G,” Teniola said.</p>



<p>He stated that the issue of destruction of telecoms
infrastructure and theft were major challenges.</p>



<p>He said, “In fact, it is one of the biggest inhibitors
because it actually dissuades investors from coming to this country as it
demonstrates that we do not have security in place.</p>



<p>“If unwarranted destruction of infrastructure is
prevalent in any society, no Foreign Direct Investment and no investor would
feel safe to bring in money to develop the country.”</p>



<p>Highlighting sectoral challenges recently, Chairman,
Association of Licensed Telecommumications Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga
Adebayo, said operators were regularly faced with access denial or exorbitant
cost of Right of Way by state governments, vandalism of telecom infrastructure,
poor or lack of access to public electricity to run telecom operations.</p>



<p>Others, according to him, are multiple taxations and
regulations.</p>



<p>He said there was a need for an executive order to
protect telecom infrastructure as well as a national digital policy.</p>



<p>Following the expiration of the 2013-2018 National
Broadband Plan, a new plan had been designed in partnership with the Government
of the United Kingdom.</p>



<p>The draft report was submitted by the Chairman of the
Committee, Ms Funke Opeke, to the Minister of Communications and Digital
Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, last week.</p>



<p>The Committee is co-chaired by a former Executive
Commissioner Technical Services at NCC, Dr Bashir Gwandu, ; while NCC’s
Executive Commissioner Technical Services, Ubale Maska, is the secretary of the
committee.</p>



<p>Pantami inaugurated the committee on ; December 16,
2019 to develop a new National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 that would be a guiding
template for further development of the telecommunications sector.</p>



<p>The ; 2013-2018 National Broadband Plan was designed
to achieve at least 30 per cent broadband penetration in Nigeria while new plan
aims to extend the penetration to 70 per cent.</p>

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