ON the heels of an inspection of facilities by undersea cable operator, MainOne, in Lagos, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, has averred that the success of the venture after one year indicates success for the commission’s broadband strategy.

His words: “We are confident that our ongoing broadband plans and initiatives will benefit from these international services promoted by indigenous investors and entrepreneurs, and managed by indigenous experts”.

MainOne @ One: From left, Immediate past EVC of NCC, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, CEO of MainOne, Ms Funke Okpeke, EVC of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, and board member of MainOne, Mr. Dapo Osinubi at the first anniversary of MainOne in Lagos.

Juwah who was special guest at the first anniversary of Main One said this is why efforts towards the national broadband initiatives will be geared towards expanding the connectivity infrastructure within our local geographical spread to ensure maximization of traffic movement between international and national routes on one hand, and within the local networks on the other.

Juwah added that the undersea cable facility has delivered the much needed relief for the West African sub-region, enabling it to access the global telecommunications highway. He gave credit to the liberalization policies of the government which opened the sector for private sector participation.

“You may all be aware that for many years, this sub-region has waited to be delivered from the clutches of SAT3, the only existing, but unreliable submarine cable facility in the region, whose tariffs were also a big challenge”, he said while commending the management of MainOne, led by Ms. Funke Okpeke for the show of enterprise that made the venture successful.

“While it may not be appropriate to draw conclusions and comparison with other operators after a year in service, it is still important that such benchmarks and operational policies that give emphasis to quality consumer experience and quick response to all consumer issues must be recommended to all the operators, irrespective of the type of services rendered”, he said.

Dr. Juwah said apart from the fact the system has high quality, high scale reliability, huge bandwidth availability, better security, and lower costs of international traffic among others, it will “hopefully, compliment our aspirations to eliminate the imbalance in the global telecom connectivity that has forced many nations of the sub-region to go the extra mile, at extra costs to achieve international connectivity”, he said.

Former Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, commended MainOne for the speedy completion of the project. He said the digital divide in the voice area, the divide in the data area has kept increasing. He said a project like this will improve broadband usage and deployment of broadband usage in Nigeria.

He said there is need to formulate a broadband policy on broadband deployments in Nigeria. He said government can enunciate this policy with the support of the private sector and that by 2020, Nigeria must be able to interact with the rest of the world at the same speed.

President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, ATCON, Engr. Titi Omo-Ettu, spoke about the potentials of MainOne and the plans by the association to host a broadband investment summit where it will espouse the potentials of broadband for the country.

Member of the Board of MainOne, Mr. Dapo Osinubi, who spoke on behalf of its Chairman, Mr. Fola Adeola, called for a policy review that will provide incentives for backbone providers, set regulations around pricing for delivering the last mile, and work towards increasing connectivity in Nigeria.