The President, Association of Telecommunications Subscribers
\n(NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, on Tuesday called for the speedy revival of
\nthe rural telephony project in the country.<\/p>\n
Ogunbanjo told The Tide in Lagos that the call became
\nnecessary to address the dire need for telecommunications services in
\nun-serviced and under-served communities.<\/p>\n
He said that the revival of the service would bridge the
\ntelecommunications divide between rural and urban settlements.<\/p>\n
Our correspondent reports that the Federal Government had
\nlast year announced the suspension of the National Rural Telephony Project
\n(NRTP) which was started in 2001, due to the poor execution.<\/p>\n
The first phase of the project was to cover 218 local
\ngovernment areas and also provide over 636,256 Code Division Multiple Access
\n(CDMA) lines in all the council areas.<\/p>\n
The NATCOMS president said that inadequate basic
\ntelecommunications penetration in the rural areas was adversely affecting the
\nquality of life of the rural population.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Nigerian Communications Commission should bring
\ncompetent telecommunications operators that could operate the service to
\npenetrate telecommunications service to the rural areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe with this, the rural telephony service will
\nbecome alive again\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
Ogunbanjo advised the Federal Government to collaborate with
\nthe telecoms operators to deploy the latest telecommunications technology to
\nserve the un-served areas in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cRural telephony should be revived as telecommunications
\nremain the catalyst for encouraging the growth of agricultural, extractive and
\nmanufacturing industries in the rural areas,\u201d Ogunbanjo said.<\/p>\n
According to him, the scheme would also enable
\ntelecommunications providers to prove lower telephony tariff to the rural
\ncommunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe urban centres have been benefiting from the latest
\ntelephony technologies, while the rural areas are yet to enjoy the dividend of
\ncommunications in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, over 40 million people living in the outlaying
\nareas have been waiting a long time for telephony service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The President, Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, on Tuesday called for the speedy revival of the rural telephony project in the country. Ogunbanjo told The Tide in Lagos that the call became necessary to address the dire need for telecommunications services in un-serviced and under-served communities. He said that the revival of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icttelecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49658","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\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}