ATCON mobilises stakeholders towards achieving 70 per cent broadband penetration target

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has rallied stakeholders towards achieving the country’s 2020-2025 target of reaching 70 per cent broadband penetration.

This is as Nigeria continues to make efforts to deepen its broadband penetration in the telecoms industry.

During the National Strategic Mobilisation for the Actualisation of National Broadband Target of 70 per cent Conference and  Exhibition with the theme ‘Realising the new set target of 70 per cent of Broadband Penetration’, Mr Ikechukwu Nnamani, the President of ATCON, said the meeting was an opportunity to review the relevance of the Nigerian policy environment vis-a-vis the telecoms operating environment.

Furthermore, he said the importance of the event is to complement the various strategic activities already embarked upon by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and all the agencies under the Ministry to achieve the set target of broadband penetration in Nigeria with great speed.

“As often the case with us at ATCON, the strategic objectives of this very important event are to complement the various strategic activities already embarked upon by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy and all the agencies under the Ministry to achieve the set target of broadband penetration in Nigeria with great speed.

“To leverage on the wide spectrum of ATCON’s sub-groups for effective participation in the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 by allowing them to access the plan and suggest various ways to speed up the realisation of the established target by the government and also serve as a veritable platform to galvanise the needed input that reflects the thinking of the telecoms and ICT sector,” he said.

Nnamani stated that, “the focus of discussion at the conference would focus on two panel sessions – State of the Broadband Implementation in Nigeria by MNOs, submarine cable operators, InfraCos, metro fiber providers, long-distance providers and impact of broadband infrastructure on OTT services providers, fintech/e-commerce operator, equipment vendors, VAS providers, satellite operators, internet services providers, manufacturer representatives and data centre operators.”

In his address, Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said Nigeria has one of the largest telecoms markets in Africa with an estimated population of over 200 million people.

He said enabling full connectivity and broadband access for a minimum of 70 per cent of the growing population is a vision that the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) seeks to achieve and surpass within the time frame of 2020-2025.

Danbatta further noted that at the launch of the NNBP in 2020, the Broadband penetration, which was largely driven by mobile technology, was slightly below 40 per cent. He said by December 2020, a penetration of 45.93 per cent had been attained.