When Nigeria took broadband investment campaign to ITU 2014 in Qatar

ITU, the global ICT regulatory arm of the United Nations Organization (UNO) turns 150 years in 2015 but looking back, the regulator thinks that the last 20 years or so have been quite eventful especially and Nigeria stands real tall for the telecommunication revolution which began in 2001.Ordinarily, Nigeria looks fulfilled in terms of voice […]

ITU, the global ICT regulatory arm of the United Nations Organization (UNO) turns 150 years in 2015 but looking back, the regulator thinks that the last 20 years or so have been quite eventful especially and Nigeria stands real tall for the telecommunication revolution which began in 2001.
Ordinarily, Nigeria looks fulfilled in terms of voice communication for which so much has been done and achieved in the last 13 years. But Communication Technology Minister, Dr. (Mrs.) Omobola Johnson, though agrees that so much has been done, says so much more still remains to be done.
Johnson who led the Nigerian delegation to the ITU Telecom World 2014, and by implication the chief promoter of the Nigerian broadband campaign, agreed with the audience and participants during the four-day event that ICT has now become the next “oil and gas,” and Nigeria is a gold mine. The Minister reeled out in her presentation statistics to prove that successes have been recorded in ICT, but the sector remains work in progress.
With an estimated population of 170 million, Nigeria is the seventh largest country in the world and of course the largest in Africa. Nigeria is now the largest African economy after the recent re-basing exercise, for which ICT alone contributes over 10 percent to the GDP.
The country’s active infrastructure projects have a total value close to $100bn. “the ICT industry has significant enabling effect on other sectors of the economy, contributing a combined 2.56% of added value,” the Minister said. She told the audience that investment opportunities are huge because of the success stories “that we tell.”
Accelerated roll out of robust, reliable and cost-effective ICT infrastructure to increase citizen access to ICT; She listed market indicators to include:
· Four undersea fibre-optic cables with combined design capacity of approximately 10 terabit per second.
· 100,000 Km of terrestrial fibre-optic cables;
· Approximately 28,000 (2G), 15,000 (3G) transceiver stations;
· 134 million phone subscription representing 96% teledensity.
· Over 74 million internet users representing 52 percent of the population.
· But broadband penetration remains at only six percent, hence the campaign to improve on this side of ICT through deployment of terrestrial fibre optic networks among others. The minister said government has put in place a national broadband strategy and roadmap that seeks to increase broadband penetration from six percent to 30% by 2018.
This will be covered by:
· 3G/Long Term Evolution (LTE) for up to 80 percent of the population.
· Fixed broadband of about 16% of population based on fibre by 2018 to gurantee minimum download of 1.5 mbps.
· Open Non-Discriminatory Access.
Government is also facilitating increased investments through.
· Spectrum auctions.
· Regional infrastructure companies (infracos)
· Smart states initiatives to reduce cost of infrastructure deployment;
· Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) for subsidized access mechanisms for unserved and underserved areas or demographics.
The Minister listed some success stories of non-telecommunications companies to include;
IHS Towers which manages over 21,000 towers with 14500 in Nigeria. Only recently it took over 9,151 mobile towers in a deal it struck with MTN Nigeria. “In 2014, IHS successfully raised $2.6bn in debt and equity bringing the total raised by HIS since 2012 to $4.5bn.” the Minister also the audience that Techno Mobile will establish a factory to assemble phones in Nigeria by 2015. She also listed Resourcery as one of the success story. Its relationship with world enabling technology firms make it a major partner of Cisco, Microsoft, HP, SAS and Systimax Solutions.
The Minister said e-commerce companies with retail infrastructure contributes to a growing demand of wholesale/retail services via e-commerce. She listed these to include: Konga, Jumia, Dealdey, Kaymu among others.
Principal partner of KPMG, Mr. Joseph Tegbe, who serves as consultants to the soon to be licensed Infracos gave an overview of the ICT environment in Nigeria at a session tagged “Nigeria Investment Meeting” the Minister, Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah, Chief executive Officer, MTN Nigeria, Mr. Michael Ikpoki and Executive Director, Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Ibrahim Dikko also made presentations, told the gathering that Infracos licensing will begin with those for Lagos and the North central regions; including Abuja.
According to him, Nigeria’s telecommunications sector has undergone rapid transformation on account of the liberalization in 2001. ICT is the fastest growing sector in Nigeria. “While data services have not recorded the same level of growth as voice, key trends indicates that demand for these services is on the rise,” Tegbe submitted.
He said there is evidence that the demand for broadband will be very high considering the slow speed experienced by those 74 million connected to the internet now. Online businesses will require high speed to process online trading and delivery of goods, hence broadband is the next big thing to happen in Nigeria after the success of voice communication.
As part of key actions to implement the National Broadband Policy, the NCC launched the Open Access Next Generation Broadband Network model in 2013. Tegbe listed the key objectives to include:
· The extension of backbone fibre infrastructure network into metropolitan areas, bringing it close to potential customers as required to encourage and support investment in last mile;
· Make available the new network infrastructure and services to all telecom operator on a fair and non-discriminatory basis by building a foundation  for fair and effective competition;
· Utilize the advantages of optic fibre cables as a transmission medium to achieve a minimum broadband speed of 1.5 mbps to the general population. The NCC has commenced activities on the Open Access model.
· First round auction for two of the seven zones has commenced.
· Second rounf fot the other five zones  to be done early in 2015, to be completed in May 2015;
· NCC auctioned 2.3 GHz in February 2014.
The Next Generation Broadband Network (NGBN) will change the way businesses are done by the people in Nigeria. As Tegbe put it, Nigeria has done very well in the strides to implementing NGBN,” but the journey has just begun, because an estimated $2bn in funding/investment will be required yearly over the next five years to bridge the broadband infrastructure gap.” Despite some challenges, Nigeria remains one of the most attractive investment destinations globally.”