The desire for faster deployment of broadband services to all the nooks and crannies of the country for quality services delivery received a big boost last week at the third annual eWorld forum held in Lagos.
The forum was organized by publishers of eWorld Magazine in collaboration with the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC in Lagos.
The event was a platform for stakeholders in the industry to look out to issues of broadband deployment, especially the gray areas the regulators need to touch in order to reach the required broadband level in penetration, growth and access that everybody is craving for.
Also, stakeholders at the event were expected to articulate other major challenges involved in the deployment process and also proffer solution that would fast-track Nigeria’s journey to ubiquitous broadband services.
Broadband issues
Areas of access and content equally came to the front burner during deliberations at the forum.
eWorld Broadband Forum: From left, Engr Titi Omo-Ettu, President of ATCON; Mr Tony Ojobo, Director of Public Affairs, NCC; Engr. Festus Daudu, Acting Director, Spectrum, Ministry of Communications Technology, representing Mrs Omobola Johnson at the Broadband Forum held by publishers of eWorld magazine in Lagos.
Various speakers who spoke at the occasion, including operators emphasized the need for all players in the country to drive local content which to them is the key in creating the critical map that will attract Nigerians to go online. For them, both access and content must go together for the country to achieve the desired goal.
In her keynote address, Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson reiterated the readiness of her ministry to making broadband services available to all Nigerians.
The minister said since Nigeria is a member of the international telecommunication’s union, ITU and United Nations, which had in different fora demonstrated dedicated interest in making broadband connectivity available in at least 40 per cent of households by 2015, there would be no basis for the country to lag behind in attaining the same objective.
According to Johnson, broadband has become a key success factor for national socio-economic development in the world’s economy, saying that a causal relationship between broadband penetration and GDP growth exist, which always results in every 10{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} increase in broadband penetration, delivering 1.6{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} growth in GDP.
The forum entitled “Broadband Ecosystem: Issues for Regulators and Operators” attracted a broad spectrum of industry stakeholders ranging from policy makers to regulators, as well as service providers, academia and consumers.
Broadband benefits
Buttressing the importance of broadband in an economy, the minister noted that broadband has benefited the business community, SMEs, agriculture, education, health and finance including access to a wider customer and supplier base for SME’s, new business models that eliminate intermediaries and access to information on good cultivation practices for farmers.
Other areas of benefit according to her include access to market prices, virtual learning deployed to rural and semi-urban areas, patient data collection and health records access, disease outbreak tracking and mobile money to name a few.
To realize the goal, she said a target of 28{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} of the nation’s population is expected to have access to internet by 2015 with just 6{e1f18614b95d3cd6e4b3128e1cd15d99b042a60a5a19c19b7a8e07e7495efa10} broadband penetration, a goal she said was set for the lCT industry to double through a heterogeneous network of fiber optic cable.
Issues being dealt with
She identified issues such as spectrum availability, right of way and base station erection as major constraints militating against the planned aggressive rollout of broadband infrastructure in Nigeria and assured that the ministry had already commenced a move to address them.
She challenged the forum to come up with suggestions that will assist government in additional ways, regarding policy direction and implementation action plans for future development of broadband in Nigeria.
In his remarks at the forum, Executive Vice-Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Engr. Eugene Juwah said he was optimistic that the gathering would provide some useful contributions to ongoing plans by the commission to ensure huge benefits of robust deployment of broadband infrastructure and services across the country.
The EVC said that the Commission had demonstrated commitment to this programme by commencing the implementation with the launch of preliminary studies that will situate the plan.
Open access model
Though the commission is currently faced with the challenge of how to drive competition when broadband services become pervasive, he said that the regulatory body is focused on the ‘Open Access’ model in which the role of the network operator is distinct from those of the service providers.
“NCC’s broadband plan is being innovatively designed in such a way as to bridge the yawning gap between available premium mobile type services, and the traditionally affordable fixed line telephony. Unlike most other parts of the world where fixed line services are commonplace, Nigeria never had abundance of fixed line services the way it has seen mobile telephony. Given the unique advantages of fixed line services, our broadband services would also be adopted to provide fixed line-type services.
“The issue of spectrum availability in broadband services is already being addressed in the global platform. One major issue that is of concern to the regulator is how it would affect broadband expansion in particular, as is currently affecting the telecommunications infrastructure generally as well as the issue of multiple regulation and multiple taxation.
Earlier in his welcome address, the publisher of eWorld , Mr. Aaron Ukodie said that the event was packaged to provide as platform for stakeholders in the industry to deliberate on issues of broadband, especially the grey areas where regulators need to address for them to reach the required broadband level in penetration, growth and access.
