Nigerian broadband market will soon experience revolution —NCC

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said the Nigerian broadband market will soon explode like the voice market did in the last decade.

The Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Professor Umar Danbatta, made this known during the Building Industry Consulting Service International (BICSI) conference and Exhibition in Lagos, last week.

Danbatta, represented by Mr Fidelis Onah, the NCC Director of Technical Standard and Network Integrity, said that availability of infrastructure was the backbone for broadband explosion. He said that the commission was already putting in place the required infrastructure to accelerate broadband penetration.

“The mobile revolution is still ongoing. The broadband revolution is about to commence.

“The solid metro and backbone ICT infrastructure required to carry and sustain the huge amount of data to be generated is already being planned to be put in place.

“This will yield the growth, development and increase in GDP that is necessary for Nigeria to take her place in the league of ICT savvy nations,” Danbatta said.

He said that it took effective distribution of infrastructure to have services permeate all nooks and crannies of the country.

The EVC said that lack of national infrastructure had compelled the service providers to develop their own infrastructure, or lease access from the existing last mile providers at non-economic rates.

He said that the regulatory body was adopting the principle enshrined in the ‘Open Access Model’ in the deployment of national fibre network to address infrastructural and operational challenges facing the country.

According to him, it will ensure an even platform and level playing ground for all players in the broadband ecosystem, to enhance the achievement of the nation’s e-economy goals.

Mr Boye Oyerinde, BICSI Chairman, Nigeria said that the issue of quality service was a lingering one in the ICT sector in Nigeria.

Oyerinde said that poor quality of service had to do with infrastructure challenges, which had yet to be addressed.