Improved Internet Access Critical to Africa’s Growth – Jegede

The provision of infrastructure that provide stable and reliable internet access is a very important element that must be addressed if Africa is to quicken the pace of economic development and ensure that citizens are enabled to compete with the rest of the world, a believe strongly agreed by Mr. Stanley Jegede, chief executive director, Phase3 Telecom.

He made the submission while speaking about his firm’s participation at Cyber Nigeria Forum and Innovation Awards and his firm’s decision to support the event.

According to him, the investment of millions of dollars in network development across Nigeria and other African countries is based on the belief that Africa had a lot of untapped potential

“At Phase3 Telecom, we have, for long, believed that developing the right communications infrastructure in Africa is what will open up the continent’s economic potential and make its citizens globally competitive. That is what informed our decision to build a regional optic fibre network using the best technologies available in the industry.

“Today, we are ready to take our network to other regions not yet reached by high-capacity transmission network to provide the best communications experience to people in the continent,” he said.

Cyber Nigeria forum, according to the organisers, was because of the Internet’s rising impact on global social and economic development and its emergence as an indispensable tool of daily life.

They added that part of the focus of the event would be how to use the internet to create jobs and ensure national security.

Jegede said further that Nigeria already had the foundation for effective communications and promised that Phase3 Telecommunications will continue to offer solutions that meet the needs of businesses, organisations and individuals.

“At Phase 3 Telecom, we have helped in developing what we believe is Nigeria’s most robust national communications backbone. We have now moved beyond just developing the basic communications infrastructure into offerings solutions that will increase productivity and deliver the full benefits of global technology development.

Phase 3 Telecom was licensed as a national long-distance telecommunications network operator by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to provide transmission services.

Currently, Phase 3 operates a 6000km fiber optic network using its unique Right of Way (RoW) to deploy fiber infrastructure along Nigeria’s high voltage power transmission lines in Nigeria and across the West Africa sub-region.