Nigeria to Grow Broadband User Base to 70m by 2017

Nigeria is expected to grow its broadband user base to about 70 million by 2017, up from its current level of 46 million, the country’s Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson has stated.

It is part of an initiative being executed by the CT ministry to expand internet access to the over 160 million population, which will also include encouraging more private investment in telecom infrastructure in the largely unserved rural communities.

Mrs. Johnson stated this yesterday in Barcelona, Spain where she is attending this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s largest annual gathering of mobile vendors, consumers and other stakeholders.

The project is also part of a larger plan aimed at migrating telecom consumers from voice calls to data traffic.

Johnson stated in an interview with the BBC’s Newsday breakfast programme yesterday that “Nigeria has the capacity to grow broadband consumption to about 30 per cent in the coming years.”

“The ministry has a complete ICT policy thrust in place which aims also to increase broadband penetration in the country. At present we have about 46m subscribers (mainly on mobile broadband), but we are making conscious efforts to increase penetration through fibre uptake into the rural communities,” she stated.

She defended the country’s telecom regulatory administration against accusations of ineptitude, saying: “the country’s telecom industry no doubts have a lot of challenges facing it, but we are tackling it. The issue of poor QoS is being tackled by the regulatory agency of the ministry (Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC).

‘’We also have a consumers complaints commission in place; and all telecom operators have a consumers complaints desk to handle issues of poor services delivery,” she stated.

The Minister also noted with satisfaction the recent reduction of SMS tariff from N11 to N4 by the NCC, saying it is all part of measures aimed at consumers’ benefits.