Nigerians Starving in Broadband Feast- Opeke

Ms Funke Opeke, chief executive officer, Main One Cable Company, owners of Main One undersea cable system has said that the major setback to broadband penetration is lack of infrastructure and urged regulatory and legislative interventions.

For instance, she said that only about five per cent of the bandwidth capacity available on Main One undersea cable is currently being used, leaving 95 per cent of the capacity redundant, though available for use

Opeke said that if Nigeria is to fully enjoy the benefits of the $250million, 14,000km fibre cable, which landed in the country three years ago, regulatory and legislative interventions were required in tackling challenges to last-mile connectivity in the country.

She said that  “Lack of infrastructure in Nigeria is a major setback for broadband penetration. There is need for more infrastructure sharing. The cost of transporting capacity from Lagos to Abuja is more than Lagos to London and there is no cost basis for this.

“We believe that there need to be an infrastructure sharing framework or policy that will ensure that available infrastructure is available on commercial basis. It is a policy that can be set up in 60 days without having to do any serious studying.” Opeke said

Opeke, who also lamented the problems facing the company in getting Right of Way (RoW) approval on time for the deployment of Main One cable across the country, however, said the RoW issue was being worked on by the ministries of Communications Technology and Works, to work on modalities to resolving the RoW issue amicably.