By Prince Osuagwu

Considering that infrastructural deficiency accounts for why technology has not optimally fast tracked Services and developments in governance, health, education and agricultural sectors among others, Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson has declared that the policies her commission and the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC had put in place for broadband acceleration, are spot on.

The minister’s courage to make the declaration stems from stakeholders endorsements that the policies are positively aimed at bridging the extant infrastructural deficit and driving increased broadband frontiers in the country.

At several fora, the minister has confessed to government’s renewed commitment to getting these policies to work magic.

Again, at this year’s World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD) in Abuja last week, the minister reiterated this belief when she told the audience that the Nigerian government had come to terms with the imperatives of having a strategic policy to improve broadband, and by extension, Information and Communication technology infrastructure across the country.

The passion with which she spoke left no one in doubt that broadband has been positioned as vehicle to drive the adoption of technology for development of health, education, governance, trade and commerce in order to achieve sustainable socio-economic growth.

Given the opportunity to highlight government’s position in ICT developments in the country, Omobola said: “This year’s theme ‘Broadband for Sustainable Development’ was apt in that it was in line with the current revolution being driven in Nigeria. Broadband is the next frontier in the ICT industry which will help in transforming the economy drastically.

“Our broadband vision for is one of a society of connected communities with high speed Internet and broadband access that facilitate faster socio-economic advancement of the nation and its people and this is why we have set a policy goal that recognised the immense socio-economic importance of broadband services to national development; one which seeks to ensure that the infrastructure necessary to provide ubiquitous broadband services is available and accessible to all citizens at affordable rates.

“The transformative benefits of having broadband available to all are clear and include improved learning, increased job creation, better community and civic engagement, improved trade and commerce, and a positive impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP)”

The minister was humble enough to admit that over the years, the modest success recorded with broadband in the ICT sector has been with several initiatives that ride on the back of mobile services boom in Nigeria, coupled with the subsequent landing of several high capacity submarine cable systems that slashed wholesale international bandwidth prices.

But she quickly reminded that “ineffective distribution and transmission of the available bandwidth inland have, however, continued to make accelerated expansion of broadband Internet access at more affordable end-user prices, a major challenge and a barrier to faster realization of the desired broadband boom”.

However, Johnson claimed that currently, the country has a clear broadband supply chain that comprises international connectivity, a national backbone network, metropolitan access links, and the local access network.

According to her, “Nigeria has an estimated population of over 167 million people and a land mass of 923,768 square kilometres. The telephone subscriber figure for Nigeria as at the end of February 2013 was 116,601,637 active lines. The four active GSM operators have about 96 per cent market share while the three active CDMA operators have the rest.

“Also, the 2G mobile coverage is at 98 per cent but 3G coverage which is mostly concentrated in urban areas is very limited at less than 35 per cent. Internet penetration is at 33 per cent and Broadband penetration is at 6 per cent. Though the Internet was first introduced in Nigeria in 1996, no appreciable uptake was recorded until the further opening of the market in 2001.”

She, lamented that the slow uptake of Internet has been largely attributed to network infrastructure deficiency among other factors.

“Nigeria currently boasts of primary fibre optic backbone infrastructure presence in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, with most fibre infrastructure concentrated in state capitals and a few urban centres. Of the 774 existing local government headquarters, very few that happen to be on the route of the primary fibre backbone are connected.”

Corroborating his minister, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr Eugene Juwah said the NCC complements the policies with regulatory interventions in the market to ensure equality of access to all players. These interventions, he said, focus on reduction of barriers to market entry by ensuring that existing and new players in the broadband space have access to transmission infrastructure on a non-discriminatory basis, and without a need to duplicate existing infrastructure by way of fiber backbones.

Others, according to him, focus on frequency spectrum availability for service delivery; ensuring proper business model and ensuring competition.

He said that the regulator has created environment for private sector participation in the broadband ecosystem, facilitating deployment with incentives to underserved and un-served areas. This is more as it facilitates agreements and resolution of disputes among stakeholders, necessary to face realities of the digital economy.