The Smart States Initiative by the Federal Government, which has compelled the states to reduce the cost of broadband access through tax reduction and simplified regulation, has attracted commendation from industry experts as it has forced Nigeria to move up the global affordable internet ranking.
Nigeria was ranked 2nd in the recent Affordability Index ranking of 30 developing economies, overtaking African mobile hubs like Kenya, Morocco and Uganda. On a global ranking, the country improved to 11th position out of 51 economies, a rise from a previous ranking of 19th out of 46 economies. “The Federal Government welcomes the revised methodology applied in deriving the Affordability Index, believing that it is aligned with the work we are doing to make the Internet affordable and accessible to the citizenry. Whilst acknowledging our rise in ranking, we continue in our unrelenting pursuit in removing impediments to infrastructure development and Internet adoption in our country”, Omobola Johnson, communications technology minister, said in a statement.
“We still have some ways to go in meeting our national targets and international benchmarks, but Nigeria’s improved ranking on the Affordability Index validates our actions to date and shows that we are very much on the right track”, she added.
The Smart States Initiative geared towards engaging authorities at both the state and local government levels to address the issue of multiple taxations would accelerate the roll out of critical infrastructure across the country. It will also aid the Federal Government in meeting its broadband target of a five-fold increase by 2017.
Already, Bayelsa, Ondo, Katsina, Lagos, Cross River states and the FCT have signed on the Smart States Initiative while Anambra, Delta, Gombe and Osun states have agreed in principle to become smart states.The backbone infrastructure in the country has improved significantly over the last decade, with multiple players, including MainOne, Phase 3, Glo 1, Suburban Telecom, Multilinks and MTN building fibre networks that crisscross the country.
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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) plans to award seven licences to regional infrastructure companies to extend broadband infrastructure nationally. The first two of these were awarded in early 2015 to MainOne and IHS Communications to provide services in Lagos and North Central states, respectively. The Federal Government is also working to improve infrastructure sharing among these operators, who have traditionally built overlapping fibre networks.“The Federal Government has unveiled a Smart States Initiative to remove all the bottlenecks that impede the roll out of broadband infrastructure”, Johnson said in a recent radio interview.
Nigeria’s broadband penetration rate stands at just 10 percent, despite the fact that close to 40 percent of Nigerians use the Internet.
The Federal Government has put in place policies to increase this penetration level to 30 percent by 2018. To increase the ability of mobile operators to serve more Nigerians, plans were recently announced to auction spectrum in the 2.6 GHz band
