Bandwidth, a major ingredient for telecommunications service delivery especially for data and video is still out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians, no thanks to the rooftop cost of the essential commodity, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt This is despite the landing of avalanche of undersea cable initiatives as well as a number of other vehicles like satellites that carry traffic. The situation has whittled the broadband revolution and worst affected are the northern parts of the country where the cost of bandwidth is high as $4,000 per mega byte. In Lagos, a mega byte goes as low as $400. Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that telecommunications operators that have last mile infrastructure for transmission of bandwidth buy bandwidth at $400 and then pay N120, 000 per month to transmit a mega byte from Lagos to Abuja. They also factor other operational expenditure bringing the total cost for bandwidth in the northern region to that high. It was further gathered that bandwidth consumers in cities beyond Abuja such as Zaria and Kano pay additional N80, 000 to N100, 000 per mega byte because of the additional costs required to transport bandwidth to the cities. Essentially, the non-availability of fibre backhaul infrastructure required to distribute bandwidth from Lagos where there is abundant capacity to hinterland is the major headache. Funke Opeke, chief executive officer, MainOne Cable Company, said that, there is no cost based rationale for bandwidth from Lagos to Abuja or Port Harcourt to be more expensive than bandwidth between Lagos and London but such is the reality because there is no enforcement of the existing regulations for infrastructure sharing. “Currently, the broadband market in the country cannot be said to be homogenous, with major cities like Lagos having a larger share of the market than the others. It is therefore important for broadband services to be readily and fully available in all states of the country such as Jalingo, Taraba, Bayelsa to ensure that the services are accessible to the end users who requires access. A child in Yenagoa must be able to go home after school confident that they will be able to obtain access to the Internet to complete research required for the paper due for submission in school tomorrow” Opeke added. Nodding in agreement, Mohammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, said that availability of distributive channels of internet and making it accessible to ISPs is essential for the country to witness a broadband revolution. He said that “without moving internet capacity from Lagos to other parts of the country, we may witness a lopsided broadband revolution, only in Lagos and its environs,” he said.
Northern Nigeria Pay 1000% More for Bandwidth
