10th April, 2018
Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says the commission is committed to leading the country to the destination of pervasive broadband services.
Danbatta said this on Tuesday in Abuja during the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between NCC and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The National Broadband Plan of 2013 to 2018, the country is expected to attain 30 per cent broadband penetration by end of 2018.
He said the potential of broadband penetration were enormous, which explained why the entire global community was investing huge resources to exploit, and assimilate broadband.
“The broadband penetration stands at 22 per cent and the target by the end of this year is 30 per cent and we have made progressed up to 70 per cent and I think that is a positive progress we have made, ” he added.
Danbatta said that a major milestone was achieved recently with the licensing of four Infrastructure Service Providers (INFRACOs).
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He listed the INFRACOs as Zinox Technology Ltd. for broadband infrastructure provisioning for South East Zone, while Brinks Intergrated Solutions was issued license for the North East Zone.
According to him, a subsidiary of Main One Cable Company Ltd., had earlier been licensed to provide services in Lagos while IHS was issued a license to cover the North-Central zone including Abuja.
He said the INFRACO licenses are based on NCC’s Open Access Model (OAM) in line with the National Broadband plan, adding that licenses were being processed for South South, South West and North West Zones.
“With a combination of licenses for infrastructure provision and spectrum auctions, and reframing of some of the existing spectrum to make them more efficient.
““We hope to attain the recommendation of the National Broadband Plan, and possibly surpass it by the end of 2018.”