E-Business
Nigeria Lags in Internet Speed, Sits at 107th Position
Telecommunications operators providing mobile broadband services in the country are focusing much on penetration without efforts on speed of broadband evident in Nigeria’s lag in broadband speed report.
Broadband is associated with speed as against narrow band. The neglect of speed aspect of broadband provision has resulted in the country occupying 107th position globally and ninth in Africa in Speedtest Global Index report for 2018.
The report puts Nigeria’s mobile broadband download speed at 12.76 Mbps with South Africa emerging first in Africa having average download speed of 18.31Mbps. This is, however, the fastest out of the African countries listed, with the next fastest being Kenya at 14.42Mbps and then Mauritius at 14.12Mbps.
Responding, Sunday Folayan, managing director, General data Engineering Services (SKANNET) as well as president, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), said that speed and penetration are complementary.
“Penetration leads to higher demand and justification for investments by the providers. More penetration leads to more demand for higher speed, which ultimately improves the access density.
“There is abundant access at the landing points, but evacuation to the hinterland, last mile distribution, quality of service and lower costs remains major challenges for us.
He urged governments to continue to remove barriers, create appropriate use-case, and drive inclusion.
“Today, Nigerians complete the purchase of JAMB and WAEC forms online. It will be good if FIRS, immigration and other essential government services are procured online. It will drive the adoption of broadband”.
On the determination of speed of internet, he said: “The forces of demand and supply will ultimately force speed, if limitations such as spectrum are removed, and there is the proliferation of Fiber to the home and fiber to everywhere.
“Much more, the ability to domesticate our Nollywood industry and making their movies available for viewing in Nigeria; We are ripe for a Netflix like local service that will then ramp up the pent-up demand for broadband speed in Nigeria”.
Muhammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, said that, Internet speed is very important, but penetration is fundamental to the development of any society. “As you know most countries focus on the penetration initially then raise the benchmark speed as more people have access at the basic level.
“This is because even with low speed internet access citizens can participate in the global internet arena – voice their opinions through social media platforms, access to educational content, online banking, emails and all other critical services. While access to high speed internet access opens more doors, such as high quality video content for both education and entertainment, video conferencing, e-health, online gaming and much more.
“The report indicates that both operators and regulators need to do more, especially through constant engagement and collaboration. There is serious need for government to work with the industry towards addressing operator’s needs so as to fast-track deployment of the needed infrastructure for broadband deployment.
“While at the same time there is urgent need for collaboration between operators towards infrastructure and asset sharing – This would hasten broadband penetrations and ensure business sustainability,” he said.
The slowest average downloads were found in Tunisia with 7.69Mbps, Egypt with 6.74Mbps and Algeria, where the speed is just 3.75Mbps.
Visa, global payment services giant, has announced plans to establish a data centre infrastructure in Nigeria.
Andrew Torre, Visa’s regional president for central and eastern Europe and Vice-President Kashim Shettima
According to a statement by Stanley Nkwocha, senior special assistant to the president on media and communications (office of the vice-president) on Friday, Andrew Torre, Visa’s regional president for central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, spoke during a courtesy visit to Vice-President Kashim Shettima at the presidential villa in Abuja.
“This is in addition to its investments of over $1 billion in the country, including a substantial technological partnership with @moniepoint to foster digital payment solutions, a $200 million investment in Interswitch, and a partnership with @thriveagric to empower smallholder farmers and enhance food security in Nigeria,” the statement reads.
During the meeting, Torre said the plan to establish the data centre infrastructure aims to bring new technologies into the Nigerian market that would bolster the nation’s growing digital economy.
“Visa has been making investments and will continue to make these investments in Nigeria,” he said.
Responding, Shettima welcomed Visa’s expansion efforts, assuring the delegation that the partnership between Visa and the Nigerian government would continue to flourish.
The vice-president commended the company for investing in ThriveAgric, noting that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is deeply committed to repositioning the agriculture sector, which remains a top priority in its 8-point agenda.
“Nigeria is where the action is. Of the 10 fintechs in Africa, about eight are in Nigeria, with moniepoint as the newest addition,” Shettima said.
“Agriculture is key to the 8-point agenda of the present administration. President @officialABAT is really keen on repositioning the agriculture industry here, and we have to invest in technology, we have to invest in modernisation.”
On January 23, Moniepoint, a Nigerian fintech company, announced it secured investment from Visa to support the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Andrew Torre, Visa’s regional president for central and eastern Europe and Vice-President Kashim Shettima
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has approved N242.8m for the procurement of a Microsoft 365 licence for its Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS) as part of efforts to digitise the service’s operations.
Mr Michael Ango, acting executive chairman of FCT-IRS, disclosed this after the FCT Executive Committee meeting chaired by Mr Nyesom Wike, the minister of FCTA, in Abuja on Wednesday.
Ango said that the FCTA was making significant investments in technology to enhance revenue generation and collection.
“So, this is also one of those investments in technology that the FCT is undertaking.
“The licence, if procured, will enhance our ability to move most of our manual processes into automated processes.
“It will enhance our ability to communicate within our offices,” he said.
The executive chairman added that the move would also reduce the use of paper and ensure better record-keeping through the storage of information and documents in the cloud.
According to him, “The licence will essentially enhance our operations and assist us in generating revenue for the development of the FCT under Wike’s leadership.”
Rack Centre, West Africa’s Tier III Carrier and Cloud neutral data centre, has welcomed Olla Cloud Service, a new private cloud service by Olla Systems Limited, a leading provider of innovative technology solutions, to its facility.
Hosting at Rack Centre, Olla Cloud Service runs on a state-of-the-art, cloud-enabled infrastructure for enterprise applications across diverse platforms, including mission critical application, web applications as well as containerised applications using Kubernetes.
Lars Johannisson, CEO, Rack Centre, welcoming Olla Systems, noted that the partnership with Olla Systems Limited would reflect the company’s commitment to providing African businesses with high- quality cloud computing services.
He noted that Olla Systems would enjoy Rack Centre’s 13.5MW data centre campus facility, designed to meet the highest international standards and offering scalable solutions to Hyperscalers, Enterprises, and Cloud service providers.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, the facility is equipped with energy-efficient systems, advanced cooling technologies to mitigate environmental impact and an optimally-designed feature to handle high-density workloads with precision.
According to Johannisson, “With Olla Cloud Service hosting at Rack Centre, clients will experience fast performance and low latency, enabling businesses in Africa to access world-class cloud computing services within a secure and compliant local infrastructure.”
Also speaking, Olusola Adenuga, chief executive officer, Olla Systems Limited, expressed enthusiasm about hosting at Rack Centre, noting that Olla Cloud remains a groundbreaking private cloud solution for businesses.
While highlighting the benefits of the partnership between Rack Centre and Olla Systems, Adenuga disclosed that “subscribing to Olla Cloud Service is cost-effective to customers because of its local currency payment advantage.”
She also noted that the partnership between the duo, provides businesses the opportunity to meet regulatory requirements of data residency, while enjoying world-class infrastructure as a service (IaaS) locally.
“Other benefits of hosting with Olla Cloud include: 24/7 support, unparalleled performance, scalability and agility.” she added.
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