NCC Hints Of Plan To Address Infrastructure Deficit In Telecoms

Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Professor Umar Danbatta, has asserted that the deployment of telecoms infrastructure across rural communities in the country remains the focus of the Federal Government.
Danbatta made this declaration at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, while delivering a keynote address at the 2021 National Conference, Exhibition, and Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, recently.
Danbatta who spoke on a sub-theme, ‘Strategic Collaboration between the Town and Gown for Effective Rural Development’, said that the vision of the Federal Government as enunciated in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (2020-2030) and the National Broadband Plan (2020-2025) had been vigorously implemented.
He explained that the NCC’s Strategic Management Plan (SMP) 2020-2024, streamlined in the Commission’s Strategic Vision Plan (2021-2025) to enhance operational and regulatory efficiency, aligned with the Federal Government’s vision for an all-inclusive digital economy.
According to him, to improve Nigeria’s broadband infrastructure, the NCC has divided Nigeria into seven zones, consisting of the existing six constitutional geo-political divisions, and Lagos constituting the seventh division in view of its importance as a strategic commercial and technological hub in the country.
“The NCC has proceeded to licence companies for each of the seven zones, to deploy broadband infrastructure that will ensure speed of up to 25 megabits per second in the rural areas. Each of the 774 local government areas of Nigeria will have an initial access point of at least 10 megabits per second”, he said.
The NCC boss disclosed that the licensed companies, otherwise known as Infrastructure Companies (Infracos), had been directed to move to site to cascade broadband infrastructure to the hinterland.
He affirmed that there was timeframe for the implementation of these projects, including the building of specialised technology centres in the rural areas to enable stakeholders to harness huge benefits of ICT.
According to him, the NCC is waiting to see the Infracos demonstrate creditable level of deployment in the cities and also discharge the burden of proof of the existence of access points in LGAs in the next five months.
Otherwise, he said that the Commission may have to take firm regulatory decisions in the interest of the Nigerian people and start-ups, who have been waiting for the deployment of rural tech solutions to make contributions to the growth of the economy by exploring derivable benefits that accrue from a digitised economy.
Danbatta said NCC would continue to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to enhance innovation, competition and participation in governance by the citizenry, which is one of the hallmarks of digital culture.
The NCC chief executive disclosed that Nigeria already has about 40,000 unique transceiver stations and their uniqueness is underpinned by their characteristics as enablers of 2G, 3G and 4G technologies.
He, however, said that this figure is inadequate for a country like Nigeria with a huge size and population, noting “the United Kingdom with less population has over 60,000 of such stations”.