Strategic activities by the Federal Government to ensure implementation of the plan to deliver 80 per cent mobile broadband penetration to Nigerians by 2018 is already building up, National Mirror learnt at the weekend.
Already, Federal Government has taken necessary inputs from key stakeholders both within and outside the country on the best way to put Nigeria on the global map of broadband nations in the next five years.
Speaking at the weekend, Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, said: "The Federal Government is now very serious about ensuring that broadband access to 80 per cent of Nigerians is achieved in the next five years and already, ways of accomplishing proper execution of this vision is being worked out."
According to her, a lot of activities whose proper co-ordination is expected to produce the 80 per cent target have begun in earnest.
"The message is clear that we need to assist the private sector in driving pervasive access to broadband. But then, the private sector must also deliver not just on basic reach and penetration, but also on quality of service for Nigerians. It is only in doing this that Nigerians will truly feel the positive impact and benefit of broadband," the minister said.
According to the government, it plans to ensure a water-tight execution strategy of the newly-approved Broadband Plan 2013-2018.
The plan was recently submitted by the Presidential Committee on Broadband co-chaired by the former Executive Vice- Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Mr. Ernest Ndukwe and the Chairman, Visafone Communications, Mr. Jim Ovia.
The broadband vision for Nigeria is one of a society of connected communities with high speed internet and broadband access that facilitate faster socioeconomic advancement of the nation and its people.
Broadband, with the Nigerian context, has been defined as an internet experience where the user can access the most demanding content in real time at a minimum sped of 1.5 megabits per second.
Available statistics on broadband penetration estimates that Nigeria's broadband penetrations is between 4 per cent and 6 per cent, which, according to industry stakeholders, underscores the need for Nigeria to give strategic importance to the development of broadband infrastructures.
With appreciable number of submarine cable landings on the shores of the country providing over nine terabytes per second of combined capacity, there are, however, concerns a all the landings such as Main One, Glo 1, West African Cable System, WACS, are in Lagos making access to other parts of the country choked due to the limitations of distributions infrastructure to the rest of the country.
He said that for Nigeria to become one of the world's leading economies y 2020, high-speed broadband networks that would provide every Nigerian with fast, reliable and affordable internet access is a fundamental requirement.
While noting that challenges to faster broadband penetration such as multiple taxation, vandalism, theft of equipment, high Rightof- Way charges, among others, have been identified by the government and are being gradually addressed, Ndukwe said: "The Federal Government is thus committed to resolving identified challenges to the quest for accelerated penetration in Nigeria."
He said the Federal Government currently is collaborating with the 36 states, private sectors and other stakeholders to achieve the goal, stressing that in areas not commercially viable, government would provide certain incentives to the operators.
National Mirror