Brighter Side of Mayan Year

Along with predicting the end of the world in 2012, the ancient Mayan calendar could have helped mankind if it threw in a few forecasts about the economy this year to encourage profligacy or parsimony.
According to all the ridiculous hype surrounding Dec. 21, 2012, the Mayans "predicted" the end of the world with one of their calendars.
 On this date, doomsayers assert that Earth will be ravaged by a smorgasbord of cataclysmic astronomical events -- everything from a Planet X flyby to a "killer" solar flare to a geomagnetic reversal, ensuring the earth will have a very bad day.  These theories of doom are bunkum.
For us at Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, we see vistas of opportunities in the ICT space.
Though, expectations are low, but that could make for a surprisingly good year.
From the record rally of mobile subscription to improved broadband penetration, here are some of the happenings we are tracking this year.
For one, the benefits of NigComSat -1R, the replacement of the NigComSat- 1 will be profound and far reaching.
 Apart from government and security agencies, as well as the media, education and health sectors, NigComSat- 1R will help spread digital dividends.
Elsewhere, the ongoing Sim card registration would help assist security agencies to fight crimes for the benefit of the lives and properties of Nigerians.
Though no date has been fixed as terminal date to bar all unregistered phone, the achievement of Sim card registration may well be Nigeria’s answer to a robust and secure citizen data.
Also the expected release of the National Policy on Telecommunications (NPT) this year will effectively capture the required framework that will boost broadband uptake and development in the country, and therefore, recommended a review of existing guidelines.
The fast growth of Mobile Money (MM) services in emerging countries such as Kenya and the Philippines have provided evidence of the need to use such means to provide low-cost financial services in Nigeria, especially to the unbanked.
The growth in mobile money use this year in the country is expected to benefit many sectors of the Nigerian economy, thus contributing to national economic growth.
In Nigeria, a large proportion of households lack access to financial services as in many other emerging countries.
Related to mobile money is tremendous impact the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) cashless policy would have.
Cashless society will offer an endless convenience of transaction possibilities, and at the same time reduce transfer/processing fees, increases processing/transaction time, offers multiple payment option and gives immediate notification of all transaction on customer's account.
This year the e-libraries project by the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) is also expected to awaken the consciousness of Nigerians on IT knowledge and boosting IT education in the country.
The proposed number portability implementation would allow Nigerians change their network service providers while retaining their numbers.
Attaining the Promised Land this year would however depend on robust regulation cascading all the multi regulatory agencies.
Service provisioning would also continue to be a challenge especially in certain parts of the country where stringent conditions are set for the operators to rollout.
Power supply is however expected to improve marginally.
Overall, there will be massive investments in network upgrades just as service providers will continue to seek improved ways to bait subscribers.