OpenMedia, Broadband Rights Africa Host Broadband Forum

Broadband Rights Africa, Openmedia Group and Atlantic Telecoms & Media have perfected plans to host an international forum on accelerating nationwide broadband access in Nigeria.
 
The Forum will hold at the Sun Hall, Four Points by Sheraton Hotel, Lekki Peninsular, Oniru Estate, Lagos on Thursday March 27, 2014.

The world has been experiencing exponential growth in data traffic due to increasing availability of more affordable and ubiquitous broadband access.

For instance, ITU estimation shows that by the end of 2013, there were 2.7 billion people using the Internet worldwide.

According to the Forum Organizers, access to the high-speed broadband networks and infrastructure has been widely acknowledged as crucial for the attainment of a knowledge society.

For Nigeria, with an estimated broadband penetration of only about 6% in 2012, Federal and State Governments initiated targeted actions to improve the accessibility and affordability of high speed broadband for both urban and rural Nigeria.

In September 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated a 12-man Presidential Committee to craft a National Broadband Strategy and Roadmap to drive accelerated increase in broadband penetration in Nigeria.
The Committee's report was submitted on the 30th of May 2013 and was promptly approved by Mr President and subsequently launched by the Hon Minister of Communications Technology in June 2013.

A National Broadband Council for the 5-year plan was inaugurated on the 16th of July, 2013 and mandated to provide periodic progress reports on the evaluation of the plan, facilitate the coordination and collaboration of the various stakeholders during plan implementation, and ensure that relevant agencies and institutions are actively engaged and monitoring the progress of the plan and highlighting adjustment areas if any.

The Ministry of Communications Technology has subsequently been very active in trying to unblock some identified obstacles to speedy roll out of infrastructure including issues such as high cost of RoW permits, multiple taxation, etc.

The NCC has also been taking regulatory actions aimed at promoting inclusive broadband penetration in Nigeria and recently came up with a new initiative for optic fibre roll out via the open access/Infraco model as well as the auctioning of a 30MHz slot in the 2.3GHz band.

While some of the Private Operating Companies have expressed reservations about certain planned actions of Government, others have been active in calling for speedy release of relevant Spectrum required for broadband as well as elimination of areas of friction that slow down or obstruct infrastructure build nationwide.

Thus, Openmedia Group in partnership with Atlantic Telecoms & Media is organizing an International Forum on "Accelerating Nationwide Broadband Access in Nigeria" with the theme: “Towards widespread accessibility and affordability of Broadband in Nigeria”.
The Forum is to properly articulate how Nigeria will achieve the targets and aspirations of the Broadband plan of at least a fivefold increase in broadband penetration and with 3G/4G coverage of wireless infrastructure to cover up to 80% of population by 2018.

The idea of the forum is therefore to provide an open platform for dialogue and also consider available technologies and tested concepts that can help achieve the goals of Government of faster attainment of inclusive broadband access for Nigeria.