Need to tackle hindrances to broadband access ? The Punch ...

Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson
| credits: File

There seems to be a consensus that it is important for Nigeria to quickly deploy broadband infrastructure and harness its benefits for economic development. DAYO OKETOLA examines on what the Federal Government is doing in this regard

Universal access to broadband has become a significant indicator of development and competitiveness globally. Statistics have shown that every 10 per cent increase in access to broadband in developing countries results in a commensurate 1.38 per cent increase in Gross Domestic Products. As such, experts say any country seeking growth, job and wealth creation must address how it can increase its access to broadband.

In view of this, broadband discourse has permeated the Nigerian Information and Communications Technology industry since the $240m Main One submarine cable and $800m Glo I cable landed in the country.

Experts say this is expected because the country?s over 95 million active mobile users have yet to benefit from the huge broadband capacity provided by Main One, Glo One and other subsea cables due to inadequate last mile infrastructure. The cost of Internet access is still high while the speed remains abysmally slow.

As such, ensuring that Nigeria is able to quickly deploy broadband infrastructure and harness the benefits therein have been the crux of the consistent industry engagement and discussions.

While some countries have gone as far as defining access to broadband (or super fast Internet) as a fundamental human right, Nigeria?s broadband access remains low at six per cent.

The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, says, ?Despite the fact that we have Internet penetration of 28 per cent (45 million Internet users), only nine per cent (14.5 million people) of the population are actually Internet subscribers and broadband penetration is at a mere six per cent.

?Though access to broadband using mobile phones (smartphones) is increasing, (thereby increasing the number of subscribers) what this statistic tells us is that most Nigerians still access the Internet through public venues (offices, cyber cafes, computer labs). This is as a result of not only the lack of ubiquity of the broadband network but also the cost of access.?

The minister laments that Nigeria currently has one of the highest costs of access in the world at approximately N8 to N10 for 5Mbs of data.

?In fact, recent statistics that I looked at have us as having one of the lowest speeds in Africa,? Johnson adds.

She reiterates that broadband has become a critical ICT infrastructure, saying the goal of the government is to achieve one national network capable of delivering broadband speeds not less than 50 per cent of the average speeds available worldwide at the consumer end within the next five years.

To achieve this, the minister says the government will encourage and enforce the principle of open access/infrastructure sharing to already build transmission networks in order to facilitate an integrated national backbone.

This, she says, has become imperative to expand the building of an integrated national backbone to achieve point of presence in all local government areas in the country. This will be complemented with the adoption of a progressive fibre build up to connect all state capital, as well as the creation of city rings in all major cities.

Some of the things the ministry will do to achieve ubiquitous broadband access in the country, Johnson says, is to remove the bottlenecks and arbitrary additional costs to infrastructure layout such as the cost of right-of-way and conflicting environmental regulations.

Specifically, she says the ministry will collaborate with the Ministry of Environment to resolve conflicting regulations to remove all known and unknown bottlenecks to base station approval.

Emphasising that broadband is a catalyst to economic development, Johnson says government goal is to increase ICT contribution to GDP by, at least, 1.5 per cent by 2015. To actualise this, she says the ministry will facilitate local content development in mobile applications, media and entertainment and support SME untilisation of ICTs. According to her, it is important to get more Nigerian business online as well as increase domestic value added services in the ICT industry.

The minister also says it is important to deepen broadband access for effective and transparent government and governance. This, according to her, will be done by delivering government services via the Internet and improving government to citizen engagement. This will entail creating a single window portal to facilitate easy access to government information.

She says all government MDAs will have functioning websites of the same/similar standards by the end of 2014.

In view of this, the minister discloses that the Federal Government has deployed 86,089 email addresses for government on.gov.ng domain names.

The move, according to her, is in line with the government?s vision to ensure that all its MDAs are migrated from their existing disparate domain names to Nigeria?s Code Top Level domain name .ng both for their websites and official emails.

Apart from the 86,089 email addresses which have been deployed, she says 250 websites of MDAs have been hosted on .gov.ng platform. She also says that the government currently hosts around 200 servers for more than 94 government agencies; adding that 450 government agencies have been connected to a common government network known as OneGov.net.

This seems as an implementation of the call made by the President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Mr. Lanre Ajayi, that governments at all levels should migrate its services online to boost broadband access in the country.

Also, the General Manager, Federal Public Sector, Galaxy Backbone, Mr. Frank Ugbodaga, while speaking on ?Broadband as a Catalyst for e-Government in Nigeria?, says there has been a rise in application of Internet and broadband resources by government, including the deployment of shared ICT infrastructure and services centres.

The Executive Vice-Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, says Nigeria is not the only country aspiring to enjoy the broadband revolution.

He says, ?Doubling the broadband speed for the economy increases GDP by 0.3 percentage points. This, according to a report, is jointly conducted by Ericsson, Arthur D. Little and Chalmers University of Technology. The report quantified the isolated impact of broadband speed. The percentage points may appear small but if you apply it to the Nigerian GDP at N40tn, you obtain an incease of more than half a trillion naira in the first instance and N120bn in the second.?

The NCC boss laments that while the regulatory environment in the country has remained stable and attractive to global investment community, there still remain a number of challenges affecting broadband infrastructure roll out.

He says one of the most difficult challenges to widescale broadband infrastructure deployment is the issue of right-of- way.

On the solutions, he says instead of imposing one off charge for right-of-way, state governments may adopt a new regime of periodic revenue stream from their right-of-way assets.

One the way to realise this, according to him, is for the states to contribute to the asset on a participatory basis.

Alternatively, he advises that state governments may choose to barter their right-of-way assets for a specialised service from infrastructure operator. For instance, he says access to righ-of-way can be traded for a security surveillance network provided from the infrastructure.

Juwah identifies the prevalent multiple regulation and taxation by state government as a major hindrance to broadband infrastructure deployment, adding that available infrastructure are characterised by operational issues such as monopoly ownership, exorbitantly high pricing and discriminatory access.

He says, ?The current development has made very little impact with the estimated penetration of broadband in Nigeria varying from less than two per cent to less than five per cent. In fact, it is evident that there is practically no broadband market in Nigeria, the huge broadband capacities on our shores notwithstanding. The challenge of the distribution of this capacity inland is the obvious task the Reflash must confront. ?

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