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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that Google’s subsea cable, Equiano, will be arriving Nigeria before the end of April.
NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Umar Danbatta disclosed this when a delegation from Google Global Services Nigeria paid a courtesy visit to the Commission’s Head Office in Abuja recently.
The Equiano cable system is the third private international cable owned by Google and the 14th subsea cable invested by Google. Equiano connects Portugal and South Africa, running along the West Coast of Africa, with branching units along the way that can be used to extend connectivity to more African countries.
In a statement on Thursday, NCC Spokesperson, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, said the two parties met to deliberate on viable collaborative interventions to propel digital transformation across the country and Africa.
Adinde quoted the EVC saying that he was optimistic that Google’s investment in the subsea cable, Equiano, which is expected to arrive in Nigeria by end of April 2022, will be more impactful in driving the country’s broadband Plan (NNBP), 2020-2025, aimed at boosting broadband penetration to 70 percent by 2025.
Danbatta, who was represented by Ubale Maska, Executive Commissioner, Technical Services (ECTS), said the commission looked forward to making the initiatives of both parties more impactful by enhancing cooperation between the NCC and Google Nigeria for quantifiable and remarkable impact.
“I am hopeful that Equiano will have additional landing points in the hinterlands through collaborative efforts with the licensed Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) to reduce retail data prices significantly and thereby complementing the commission’s efforts at ensuring affordable Internet services are available to boost the commission’s ongoing broadband policy drive,” The NCC boss said.
Speaking earlier, Juliet Ehimuan, Director, Google West Africa, commended the commission for its consultative approach in formulating regulatory policies, while applauding it for carrying out a seamless, fair, credible, impartial and successful auction of the 3.5 Gigahertz spectrum for the deployment of the fifth-generation (5G) in Nigeria.
She stated that it was evident that both the NCC and Google shared a common goal.
According to Ehimuan, the demands for internet services have increased the need for more capacity, and sustainable collaborations with all relevant stakeholders within the public and private sectors.
She said, “Google’s commitment of $1 billion across five years in various interventions will support digital transformation in Nigeria and across Africa and research has proven that the continent will have an additional 300 million Internet users and Nigeria will lead in that number, given its current statistics of over 141 million internet subscribers and broadband penetration of over 40.88 per cent as at January 2022,”.
