FG plans committee on national broadband roadmap

Johnson said at the Nigeria Broadband Forum in Lagos that the committee would define the milestone for the provision of affordable and accessible broadband services.

 

The forum with the theme, “Demand as catalyst for broadband services in Nigeria”, was organised by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

 

She said the Federal Government remained committed to use broadband to penetrate the nation’s underserved areas not reached by telecommunication network.

 

The minister said that the committee would include various Information Communication and Technology(ICT) stakeholders, who would advise government on broadband implementation.

 

She said that government’s commitment stemmed from the potential of broadband in economic development, education delivery, healthcare provision, energy management as well as government/citizen interaction.

 

Johnson said that having a universal internet capacity and a national ICT backbone for data traffic was as important as power and water infrastructure.

 

According to her, all over the world, broadband has become a significant indicator of development and competitiveness.

“Every 10 per cent increase in access to broadband in developing countries results in a commensurate 1.38 increase in GDP; these statistics should provide the impetus to meet broadband demand, ” the minister said.

 

She said that the government’s intention was to increase broadband penetration five-fold by the end of 2017.

“Our objectives for broadband are threefold; the first is to accelerate the penetration of reasonably priced broadband internet in the country,’’ Johnson said.

 

She said the other objective was to “foster broadband usage for national development and to ensure the rapid development of a development of broadband policy support and implementation framework.”

Johnson said that the government would use periodic review of broadband penetration as a strategy in objective delivery.

“We will promote both supply and demand side policies that create incentives for broadband backbone and access network deployment, facilitate broadband development and deployment, leverage on existing universal service frameworks.’’

Johnson said the government would also:

“Provide special incentives to operators to encourage them to increase their investment in broadband rollout, promote e-government and e-services that would foster broadband usages;

``Enhance the capabilities of the Nigerian population to make use of, and contribute to broadband and in so doing increase its relevance to the socio-economic development of the country and its populace.”

The minister said that broadband would be delivered through the deployment of fixed fibre wireless and satellite technology.

“The investments required to deliver this target will come from both the public sector through direct funding, subsidies and private sectors through domestic and foreign direct investment and Public Private Partnership (PPP),” she said.