Dearth of infrastructure; vandalism; lack access to finance; and epileptic public power supply among others have all conspired to send the cost of internet access to the rooftops , thereby keeping millions of Nigerians out of the information superhighway, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal
Access to the Internet is deemed a basic human right that should be guaranteed and protected by states by the UN Human Rights Council.
But in Nigeria, the ability of telecommunications operators to deploy requisite broadband infrastructure needed to improve internet penetration is being hampered by prohibitive cost of right-of-way.
The federal government has announced a new right-of-way policy to ease difficulties encountered by operators in the erection of telecom infrastructure but it is not being enforced as there are still absurd levies by various agencies and state governments on right-of-way approvals.
Nigeria is also facing man-made internet dam because it has enough bandwidth capacities from the various sub marine cable companies sitting on her Atlantic shore but lack sufficient inland fibre optic infrastructure to carry the bandwidth to offices and residences in the hinterlands.
Similarly, the sustained attacks by Boko Haram, the Islamic sect on telecommunications’ facilities as well as acts of vandalism pose dangers to investments in the sector.
The willful destruction and vandalism of telecoms infrastructure and equipment; added to the high cost of maintaining the infrastructure after deployment have made operators to concentrate on parts of the country where there are relative peace.
Omobola Johnson, minister, communications technology, even concurred at a broadband summit 2012 held in Lagos in December, when she said that “No right thinking infrastructure provider will invest in the deployment of infrastructure, if this situation prevails.
We will continue to have tremendous under-utilised capacity of international bandwidth,’’ she said.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that well over 90 per cent of Nigerians still lack access to the web, as well as personal computers.
Poverty has become a household name in Nigeria. Majority of the country’s population, according to the statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics are poor.
The nation’s financial institutions are not helping matters because of their reluctance to lend to majority of poor Nigerians to purchase basic ICT tools to lift them out of poverty lines.
There are also problems of multiple taxes; and the notoriously unreliable public power supply.
Operators are subjected to multiple taxes from all tiers of governments who see telcos are milk cows which must be milked dry.
Some states, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government even employ extra-legal means to coerce operators to submit to the payment of illegal taxes
As if that is not enough, telcos have all turned to independent power producers to power their operations while public power supply is standby.
The power supply is like the nerve, in fact, the engine of production.
The near absence of public power supply has a devastating effect on businesses and has forced many smaller telecom companies to close shop because they could no longer remain competitive.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek also gathered that internet access has continued to elude majority of Nigerians because global System for Mobile communications operators are holding firm to their dominance of the dongle segment of internet service provision by frustrating Internet Service Providers with the pre-requisite technology from rolling out such service.
A dongle is a small USB device that allows a user access the internet with a 3G mobile broadband connection.
For any internet service provider be it telecommunications provider or traditional ISP to be able to launch dongle mobile broadband service especially in cities such Lagos, such provider must have multiple base transceiver stations (BTSs).
Presently, only GSM service providers have the required number of base stations, some with as much as 800 in Lagos alone.
It was gathered that GSM operators are reluctant to collocate with ISPs for fear that their (GSM providers) market may be eroded if the ISPs ride on their back to deploy 4G services said to be profoundly disruptive.
It is profoundly disruptive because it will slash the cost of internet service by more than 1000 per cent.