Exclusive… Next-Generation Optical Solutions Paving the Way for Broadband Acceleration in Nigeria

With a national target of reaching 70% broadband usage by 2025, Nigeria has made great strides, with broadband usage increasing to 44.5% in July 2022.

Naveed Kashif, Head of the Southern Africa Market at Nokia,

According to Naveed Kashif, Head of the Southern Africa Market at Nokia, optical solutions that have the scale to allow for significant growth will enable the country to meet its aggressive connectivity targets.

“These optical solutions will allow for growth from 10G and 100G to 200G and beyond in the future. For Nigeria to meet its broadband targets, the country needs optical solutions with lower latency and the ability to handle fronthaul and backhaul 4G and 5G,” he says.

“As mobile networks and data centre connectivity requirements grow in the country, optical solutions will allow for flexibility, growth, and the required low latency.

Support for rural broadband is also a key consideration and optical networks can work in conjunction with GPON and other access technologies.”

Nokia has a large portfolio of optical products from core, metro, long haul, to subsea.  “This comprehensive set of solutions allows us to support our CSPs in any scenario.

This broad product set coupled with our services and network management portfolio provide good integration for CSPs and ensures that their present needs are met while providing them with good network insights. Nokia also brings a wealth of industry knowledge how to grow Optical networks in a cost effective, efficient manner,” says Kashif.

Paving the way for broadband acceleration in Nigeria

These optical solutions provide the transport needed to support data centre connectivity, cloud data and mobile edge applications, as well as mobile backhaul transport and will propel Nigeria towards Industry 4.0 adoption. All of this will help Nigeria achieve faster, more reliable broadband across the country, including in rural areas.

“As more Webscale providers are looking to provide infrastructure in Nigeria and more mobile carriers introduce 4G and 5G in the country, better latency and security on the network will be needed and next generation optical solutions can support this as well,” he says.

This will result in faster internet connection, access to more robust applications, and will ultimately reduce the digital divide between urban and rural communities in Nigeria.

It also creates the potential for more innovative solutions across different industries, and will support smart cities, as well as start-up and innovative centres.

This will have a significant impact on Nigeria’s economic development. Today, the ICT sector represents more than 17% of the growth in GDP in Nigeria.

“Next generation optical solutions will enable this GDP contribution to continue to grow significantly by allowing continued innovation and support for key technologies for faster broadband and more bandwidth intensive app development,” Kashif concludes.

“It will also ensure growth in smart city rollout and adoption, the automation of ports and other Industry 4.0 use cases to growth the Nigerian economy event further.”