By Prince Osuagwu
Basically, bandwidth is a critical commodity. It has been historically very expensive as it is based on the sharing of limited physical resources. But the Managing Director of Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited, NigComSat, Engr Ahmed Rufai has said that Nigeria can save the over $500million it expends yearly on the purchase of bandwidth from abroad if the country could launch more satellites.

•Rufai

According to him, elsewhere in the world countries have resorted to catering for domestic bandwidth requirements through the local deployment of critical telecommunications infrastructure. And for him, “this was one of the key objectives that birthed the Nigerian Communications Satellite project”.

Rufai at the Africa ICT hall of fame lecture in Lagos, at the weekend,  noted that the advances in broadband access technologies would drive a demand for additional capacity on network backbones. “For instance emerging applications such as telepresence require substantial bandwidth and will drive the demand for additional capacity on network backbones. In order to remain relevant in an ever changing telecommunications environment, it is imperative that domestic bandwidth requirements are not only met but surpassed. This can be done through the increased investments in fibre optic networks and the launch of more communications satellites”.

Rufai also highlighted on the need to enthrone a true enabling regulatory environment, saying that was one of the ways to electrify the kind of telecom growth that sustains a nation.

He said that “the development of the telecommunications industry in any country must be complemented by the development of a befitting regulatory environment. Regulators are primarily concerned with matters such as licensing, price control, service-level agreements, interconnection, radio spectrum management, and access to infrastructure.

“In Nigeria, the overriding objective of the National Telecommunications Policy is to achieve the modernisation and rapid expansion of the telecommunications network and services.  This will enhance national economic and social development, and integrate Nigeria internally as well as into the global telecommunications environment”

Rufai also exhibited the kind of rare courage among civil servants in recent times, admitting that there was a serious disconnect between the Nigerian leaders and those they were leading, alluding to the fact that it was why everything seems to be working in retrogress instead of in progressive dimension.

He however noted that even the Nigerian entrepreneurs have failed the country because of their dependent and heavily reliant on government subventions.

“Can anyone recall any entrepreneur that is doing well today outside government support? Entrepreneurship doesn’t thrive relying solely on government. But today’s trend is that entrepreneurs are always parading the corridors of the presidency, travel with the President and if the government has not passed the budget it affects their business. Why it would it be so if the tenets of entrepreneurship is followed? That is how they have failed the country.”