Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications, says the Nigerian National Broadband Council (NNBC) has resolved to declare a national emergency status for ICT infrastructure rollout, review the licensing regime to support additional services that can be offered by existing licensees and new entrants and harmonise fees and charges for Right of Way, to deepen broadband penetration in the country.
This is because telecommunication infrastructure is often tampered with during road construction, as they are not included in road plans. Practitioners decry the huge fees paid as Right of Way to state governments, which they say constitute 60 percent of their cost, in addition to multiple taxation. Further costs are incurred because operators often resist sharing infrastructure. “The ministry has already taken some measures to address the concerns raised by stakeholders over the challenges militating against ICT infrastructure rollout, especially the multiple and exorbitant Right of Way charges,” said Shittu, in his keynote address at the BusinessDay Broadband Summit held in Lagos on June 2.
Shittu further said, “We are reviewing all policies and laws, including the National Communications Act 2003, setting up a harmonisation committee on convergence, compensating the cable operators to relinquish the spectrum band currenly occupied by them.”
Operators at the summit seized the opportunity to highlight key challenges militating against Nigeria’s ambition of 30 percent broadband penetration by 2018 including inadequate data price floor, vandalism and theft of telecom equipment, poor coverage in rural areas, inadequate rules to promote competition and little local content in data hosting and development of applications.
All is not gloomy, however. “We should not lose sight of the fact that we are making progress,” said Omobola Johnson, former minister of communications and chairperson Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) who chaired the summit.
“There is a tremendous amount of progress in local content in Fintech. The opportunities in Nigeria are huge, with 19 million internet subscribers and over $4million dollars worth of investments recently, all the regulator needs to do is to provide a level playing field.”
Funke Opeke, managing director/CEO of Main One, provider of innovative telecom services and network solutions for businesses, who gave a keynote address at the summit, urged the government to withdraw licenses of operators who refused to share infrastructure. She cited growth examples in Kenya of over 150 percent, as a result of infrastructure sharing.
Some business leaders in a panel discussion on the impact of broadband on their businesses, said increased broadband penetration from 6 percent in 2014 to current levels of about 20 percent, has improved efficiency in their operations, lowered operating costs, increased customer reach, improved service delivery and inspired new business models.
“The use of broadband services has enhanced our ability to distribute services online, we now have enrolees in areas we have no physical presence. We can now provide more health information for more people, even in rural areas,” said Adesimbo Ukiri, managing director/CEO of Avon Healthcare, a health management organisation.
Similarly, Tunde Coker, managing director Rack Centre, a data centre operation, said that with the aid of broadband, cloud service is transforming Nigeria’s economy, increasing foreign direct investments into the country and leading to the creation of new businesses.
“One of the sectors that broadband has impacted is the banking sector, as it can now boast of 23 percent bank account penetration through 107 percent telephone and 55 percent internet penetration,” said Olusola Teniola president of the Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ATCON).
Teniola further said, “We are confident that other sectors like agriculture insurance, health, food and beverages can be turned around, if all these industries adopt digitisation, the same way the banking sector got transformed through the infusion of ICT in their service delivery.”
Nigeria has rolled out new 4G technologies but the ecosystem is being threatened by competition issues, multiple taxation, multiple foreign exchange windows and lack of infrastructure sharing.
“Without a review of the data services provisioning market structure, there is a serious risk of market failure, with resultant ripple effect. Current evidence suggests that with inflation at 17 percent, input costs at a per unit per Mb level, that retail data prices available on the market are unsustainable, even with economies of scale, hence a serious distortion exists that needs immediate intervention,” said Teniola.
Operators urged the government to exact punitive measures against vandals who steal batteries from cell sites and revamp an abandoned scheme to provide broadband access to local governments around the country.
“Between January and March this year, over 20,000 batteries have been stolen from different cell sites around the country. Until we classify our telecom infrastructure as critical assets and secure them, we won’t grow, we won’t deepen our broadband penetration in Nigeria,” said Gbenga Adebayo, president of ALTON.
Austin Okere, vice chairman of CWG plc said, “The Federal Government should resuscitate the plan to roll out broadband to all the universities. The $500million earmarked for a new satellite project should be used to provide broadband to rural areas.”
ISAAC ANYAOGU
