THE Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has again reiterated its drive towards increased broadband penetration in the country.
This was part of Professor Umar Danbatta, NCC executive vice chairman’s goodwill message at the two-day DigitalSENSE Forum Series 2016 held in Lagos said that the Commission will not relent on creating enabling environment for competition among operators in the industry as well as ensuring the provision of qualitative and efficient telecommunications services throughout the country.
The EVC represented by Oluwatoyin Asaju, deputy director, Spectrum Admin at NCanetration will lead to more organisations adopting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and other flexible approach to work environment.
According to the International Communications Union (ITU), an “increasing number of workers are relying on mobile devices to do their jobs, and smart companies and nations realize that this trend can help them cut costs and boost efficiency”.
To this end, the EVC said in a paper titled, “Internet governance: creating opportunities for all Nigerians: the role of broadband”, was in line with the Commission’s mission “support a market driven Communications industry and promote universal access”.
He said that the future broadband is nonnegotiable, as almost 3 billion people, estimated 40% of the world’s population, are using the internet and two third of the number are from the developing world.
“In developing countries, the number of Internet users will have doubled in 5 years, from 974 million in 2009 to 1.9 billion in 2014. Mobile broadband remains the fastest growing telecommunications market segment, with continuous double-digit growth rates in 2014.
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“Mobile broadband is growing fastest in developing countries, where 2013/2014 growth rates were expected to be twice as high as in developed countries (26% compared with 11.5%), according to the ITU”.
All regions continue to show double-digit growth rates but Africa stands out with a growth rate of over 40% twice as high as the global average.
Meanwhile, mobile-broadband subscription in Nigeria tripled from 30,939,112 subscriber in 2012 to 97,034,843 subscribers as Dec. 2015.
The EVC boosted that Nigeria has met ITU’S broadband target for 2015, especially by establishing a national broadband plan, in which the country sets major broadband target of 30% Broadband Penetration by 2018.
According to him, “This means we will see increase in GDP! More small business will contribute to GDP because, 10% increase in Broadband equals 1.3% increase in GDP!
“We have taken the right steps towards unleashing broadband like, Licensing of infrastructure companies; Auction of 2.6GHZ spectrum; Fiber connectivity of internet exchange points and Determination of whole sale pricing for lease capacity.
“Therefore, with over 107 percent teledensity for voice segment of telecommunications services already achieved in Nigeria, Nigeria remains a sure haven for ICT investments”.