NCC restates commitment to TVWS technology to expand broadband services

Chinenye Anuforo

The Nigerian Communication’s Commission (NCC) said it is actively exploring the utilisation of Television White Space (TVWS) technology to expand affordable broadband services to rural areas, stating that it has issued Infrastructure Company (InfraCo) licenses to some organizations to deploy fibre across the geopolitical zones with Access Points in all the 774 local government areas of the federation. 

The Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Umar Garba Danbatta, who said this in Lagos at the e-Governance Conference 2019 with the theme, ‘Powering Governance with Information and Technology’, explained that the Commission hopes to increase the number of fibre deployment in Nigeria to 127,000 kilometre from its current 42,000 kilometer of fibre connectivity in the country.

“Through the InfraCo initiatives, therefore, the Commission expects additional 30,000 kilometre of fibre to be added. This is aside the results expected from major Mobile network Operators (MNOs), who also  earmark resources, on a yearly basis, to expand their fibre deployment.”

Represented by Dr. Henry Nkemadu, Director, Public Affairs, NCC at the summit, Danbatta, who traced the deliberate decision of Nigerian government to embrace e-Government to the National Telecommunications Policy 2000, said that the decision led to the growth of e-services and proliferation of government portals providing all kinds of e-services to citizens, businesses and stakeholders who are able to remotely and efficiently enjoy government services with the best known today being the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) among several other e-services.  “The Commission exceeded its 30% target for Broadband Penetration in 2018 and will continue its drive towards universal access as detailed in the framework of its 8 Point Agenda. As at August 2019, 2G subscriptions stood at 122.9 million, corresponding to 64.42 per cent of the population.

“Also, there were 49.7 million 3G subscriptions equivalent to 26.03 per cent of the population with 17.3 million 4G subscriptions representing 9.07 per cent of the population. Broadband penetration on 3G and 4G, which are categorised as broadband networks, therefore stood at 35.10 per cent in August, 2019.