The\u00a0 Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has urged the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, to establish a mechanism for development of a National Policy for Community Networks.
\nThe\u00a0 Executive Director, CITAD, Yunusa Yau, who made the call during a press briefing in Abuja on recently, said a national policy for community networking was lacking, yet very crucial because of its numerous advantages.
\nHe stated that\u00a0 participants at their recent stakeholders meeting affirmed the viability of community networks as one of the innovative strategies being used by many countries to address connectivity gaps.
\nAccording to him, this was especially where mobile network operators have found too unprofitable, either because the populations are sparse, communities are poor or they are too hard to reach.
\n\u201cThe understanding is\u00a0 \u00a0that,\u00a0 there is need for a new business models of small, flexible and nibble providers to fill the gaps that bigger players cannot fill,\u2019\u2019 he said.
\nYau said participants also realised that using community networks to address connective gaps required a robust policy on community networks.
\nWhile acknowledging the various efforts of the Ministry to engender digital transformation in the country, he said with digital divide, the efforts of the Ministry might be difficult to achieve.
\n\u201cIn particular, a large number of people in rural areas are hard to reach and communities will be left behind as the experience has shown\u201d, he said.
\nHe also explained that when broadband was rolled out, that\u00a0economic and accessibility factors were key hindrances to their affordability in those communities.
\nYau also called on the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) to develop guidelines and regulations for the operation of community networks.
\nAccording to him, the agency should allow communities to access and use TV White Space for setting up community networks.
\nHe enjoined the Galaxy Backbone Plc to provide communities with access to its backbone for use as community network getaways.
\nCITAD,\u00a0 a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), also stressed the need for\u00a0 the Universal Service Provision Fund to support the upgrading of many community digital centres they set up in the country to serve as nucleus of community networks.
\nHe urged the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to work with communities at grassroots level to drive digital literacy, which, he said, is critical for utilisation of digital technology.
\nCITAD also called on private sector operators to support communities in building community networks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The\u00a0 Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) has urged the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, to establish a mechanism for development of a National Policy for Community Networks. The\u00a0 Executive Director, CITAD, Yunusa Yau, who made the call during a press briefing in Abuja on recently, said a national policy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icttelecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=287419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287422,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287419\/revisions\/287422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=287419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=287419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=287419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}