By Emmanuel Elebeke

Despite the giant strides in Information and Communication Technology, ICT, low broadband penetration has remained the bane of the industry. However, there now

seems to be light at the end of the tunnel as the Broadband Council has said that there had been a two percent increase in the broadband implementation plan within the past eighteen months.

The council, made this known at its quarterly meeting, held last week. It said that although progress is being made on the implementation of the plan, time demands that efforts be fast- tracked to ensure acceleration of pricing and metro fibre across all the states in the country.

The Council chaired by the Minister of Communication Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson evaluated the outlined milestones of the broadband plan and called for accelerated implementation.

Johnson, while applauding what she termed the successful auction of the 2.3GHz spectrum, licensing of the first two Infracos for metro fibre rollout, called on successful bidders to quickly rollout to improve the pace of implementation.

Also considered by the Council was the need to increase the landing points of international submarine cables beyond Lagos to other coastal states, arguing that additional landing points in the country 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.