Experts Seek Clear Policy for Broadband Penetration

Stakeholders have urged the federal government as a matter of urgency to intervene with clear policy on operations of transmission link, as the 2018 target set by the federal government to achieve 30 percent broadband penetration draws nearer.

According to them, the major problem in broadband penetration especially taking bandwidth to the hinterland is availability of affordable transmission link which is today mainly provided by GSM operators.

They argued that waiting for the take-off of Infracos that are yet to be licensed will be counter- productive in view of short time frame government has to achieve its set target of 30 percent broadband penetration.

They said that absence of a clear policy direction on the operations of national transmission infrastructure has led to arbitral charges by owners of the infrastructure which has made it difficult for operators in cities outside of Lagos to delivery broadband services at affordable rate.

Dewole Ajao, operations manager, Bandwidth Consortium, said that the various national links are underutilized and that their owners are spending money maintaining them, which according to him is responsible for high cost been charged by them.

“An important step is for Nigerian government agencies to stop spending all that money to foreign countries in the name of buying satellite bandwidth. If we use that money to buy terrestrial bandwidth, local providers will receive more business and they can strengthen their operations,” he noted.

He attributed the use of satellite bandwidth by federal government agencies through Galaxy Backbone as part of the reasons why government is reluctant to intervene to find lasting solution to problem of national fibre link infrastructure in the country required for broadband internet.

Mohammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, said that availability of distributive channels of internet and making it accessible to ISPs is essential for the country to witness a broadband revolution.

“Without moving internet capacity from Lagos to other parts of the country, we may witness a lopsided broadband revolution, only in Lagos and its environs,” he said.

Rudman however, added that it is the responsibility of government to provide enabling environment for people to invest in the economy, but where the challenges are enormous those who have courage to weather the storm are left with no option than to hike the cost of their services.

“Stakeholders have been talking on these challenges in the provision of broadband internet for several years now, there is need to find lasting solution to the problem. Sharing of infrastructure has become a problem for operators especially on the national fibre link space. There is no reason for all the GSM operators to lay different fibre link across the country where they could share with the operator that first laid instead of wasting human and material resources duplicating what is already in existence,” he said.

Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (AITON), said that granting multiple operational license to operators to provide metro and national fibre infrastructure does not guarantee investment in that regard, but implementation of well-articulated policies that will encourage operators to invest their money.

He said Government must go beyond granting of licenses to eliminating those barriers such as bottlenecks in securing ‘right of way’, impediments to smooth network operations- where operators are forced to pay levies that are not legalized, and vandalisation.

He explained that broadband services are anchored on availability of bandwidth and that with excess capacity at our shores, investment need to be encouraged to distribute this capacity to various geographical areas of the country for broadband revolution to be experienced as is the case with voice service.

He added that operators that secured licenses to roll out broadband services with big money are yet to invest in provision of infrastructure because of clumsy process of securing ‘right of way’ from various government agencies.











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