By Emeka Aginam

LAGOS — The Broadband Council has called for accelerated implementation of Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2013- 2018 to ensure that Nigeria achieves a five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2017/2018.

The council chaired by the Minister of Communication Technology, Dr Omobola Johnson, took the decision at its regular quarterly meeting, in Abuja

The council, among other things, acknowledged the progress made on the implementation of the Broadband Plan in the last 18 months, especially the increased capacity rolled out by telcos and other infrastructure providers which had resulted in a two per cent increase in broadband penetration in 2014.

The council also noted the successful auction of the 2.3GHz spectrum, licensing of the first two Infracos for metro fibre rollout and called on successful bidders to quickly rollout to improve the pace of implementation.

It commended the trial of TV White Spaces approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, and National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, to reduce cost of internet access and expressed concern on the need to increase the landing points of international submarine cables beyond Lagos to other coastal states.

The council also commended the telecoms operators for their leadership in the area of base station infrastructure sharing and deployment and resolved that this needed to be extended to fibre.

Additional landing points in the country, according to the council, would not only reduce vulnerability and risks associated with a single point of failure but would make it faster and cheaper to lay terrestrial cable from these points to other parts of the country.

Calling on NCC and the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) to provide financial incentives to accelerate the imlementation, the council acknowledged that some milestones were missed due to schedule delays.