By EMEKA AGINAM

If Nigeria and indeed Africa harness the ubiquity of 4G mobile broadband, the continent’s Gross Domestic Projects, GDP among other things will greatly improve. This is the position of Huawei Global Vice President, Charles Ding, at the just concluded World Economic Forum held in Abuja.

Ding said that mass deployment of fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband can help bring more Africans online, grow her Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) and job creation.

AddressingPresidents, ICT Ministers, Economic experts and resource persons during a panel discussion on new solutions to bring all Africa online at WEF, he told the gathering that there were several advantages of making a strong case for building LTE networks in Africa.

For him, “fixed-line infrastructure in most African countries is limited and underdeveloped. For instance, ITU rates fixed broadband penetration in Africa at only 0.3%.

“Therefore, upgrading from existing fixed-line infrastructure will be more costly and less effective. Second, building mobile networks                                                                     can significantly enlarge broadband coverage to people living in rural and underprivileged urban areas, because LTE users are always connected wirelessly to fast, responsible, and reliable data network.

“Constructing LTE networks can make effective use of existing equipment and technologies, and therefore lower the cost of initial investment and LTE-enabled devices become increasingly more affordable.