Phase3Telecom West Africa’s largest independent tier II telecommunications services provider says to achieve the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NBP) of 30 per cent broadband penetration by end of 2018, there is urgent need to implement programmes for faster ICT growth.
Stanley Jegede, Chief Executive Officer observes that through this process, Nigeria will be on track to realise its economic growth which includes the deployment of 18,000 kilometer of fiber optics in the country.
Jegede while assessing the telecoms industry pointed out that 2017 witnessed some economic contractions across sectors with the Nigerian telecom industry seeing a plummet in revenue for operators aided by operational hitches which affected quality of service.
According to him, “Mobile telcos alone witnessed a sharp drop in the number of telecoms subscribers from 155 million in January to 140.7 million”
He opine that his company has commenced operational timeline by pulling the right partnerships for an infrastructure build-out that offer top line network services, scalable enterprise and converged service solutions that will see people especially in rural communities rapidly leverage the opportunities of broadband.
He further pointed out that Phase3 Telecom has welcomed efforts to re-define national and sub-regional telecommunications landscape despite current economic clime.
“Phase3 believes that policies that allow telecom infrastructure companies to thrive is certain to attract more investments to support the capital expenditure programmes that needs to be undertaken to realize the country’s vision of digital transformation that will launch Nigeria into a truly hyper-connected age as seen in Japan”, he said
Jegede said operators in the telecoms industry need to sustain partnerships geared towards culling more investment in broadband infrastructure deployment, so Nigerians can make use of the enormous deposits of broadband capacities available to the country to increase broadband penetration which is now at 21% and to make Nigeria’s broadband initiative a faster reality.
To him, this is a factor that is capable of showcasing Nigeria’s full dedication to ensuring broadband access for all – where the average user’s internet experience includes access to rich content at a minimum speed of 1.5 Mbit/s in real time.
“This is not only a huge encouragement for telecom service providers but a vital step in the right direction to achieving faster socio-economic development – especially quicker transition of the nation’s less penetrated towns, and villages into ICT driven havens”, he said.
Monday Aghaeze
