Pat Stevens/
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has explained that the need to boost broadband penetration from its present coverage of 37.8 percent to over 70 percent in the next five years informed the decision of the Federal Government to come up with the new National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020-2025), which will run from 2020 to 2025.
The Minister, who disclosed this on Monday, at the inauguration of a 25- member committee in Abuja, also said the pervasive broadband penetration will certainly make Nigeria a truly digital economy.
According to the Minister, the new NBP 2020-2025 is sequel to the first NBP 2013-2018.
The new NBP Committee has Ms. Funke Opeke, Managing Director/CEO of Main One Cable Company Limited, as Chairperson with Dr. Bashir Gwandu as Co-Chairman. Engr. Ubale Maska, the Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) as the Secretary to the Committee. Maska will be supported by four staff of the Ministry in the secretariat.
The Committee has a mandate to develop a new National Broadband Plan that will be the guiding template for the development of this very important area of telecommunications.
The Committee is also expected to take a critical look at where the country is after undertaking a painstaking review of the 2013-2018 phase and the status of penetration now.
The Minister enjoined the members to also examine current challenges with a view to proffering solutions thereto, while also looking at the position of growing and emerging technologies among others.
The new NBP has the collaboration and support of the United Kingdom Government.
NewsmakersNG recalls that the inauguration of the new Committee was a follow-up to the launch of the National Policy for Digital Economy and Strategy by President Muhammadu Buhari, in November 2019.
The policy has eight pillars among which are Developmental Regulation, Digital Literacy and Skills, Solid Infrastructure, Service Infrastructure, Digital Services Development and Production, Digital Society, Emerging Technologies and Indigenous Content Development.
The Minister urged the Committee members to lay emphasis on the third pillar of the National Policy which accommodates broadband and data centre, which are key components for economic growth and promotion of digital economy.
He explained further that the Committee’s work will address significantly one of the eight pillars and the remaining seven will also run as one of this all-important pillar.
“The work of this Committee will go a very long way in supporting the national digital economic policy and strategy for the Federal Government because digital economy is strategically dominating the world economy today.” said the Minister.
He noted that members of the Committee were selected based on their competence, integrity and professionalism, adding: “In all these, Nigeria comes first.”
Opeke, who responded on behalf of the committee, thanked the Minister for the opportunity to serve and said the target of the committee is to achieve, at least, 65-70 percent broadband penetration across Nigeria in the next five years, adding that the objective is technology neutrality for the right purpose.
“The Minister has set the goal and I am sure the NCC is in agreement,” Opeke said, adding that the Committee “will look at the work of the last Committee and what was done, the prospects, the challenges that are still there in order to come up with a plan to achieve the set objectivs.”.
“I believe the objective is achievable with sincerity of purpose and with hard work for these are critical services and infrastructure that we need to bring to all Nigerians and we’re optimistic that we can accomplish that goal. There is work to be done on fixed infrastructure but the reality is mobile technologies are also progressing quite fast to deliver very capable services to people.
“We see what is going on with 5G all over the world, so we will address both at the Committee but I believe our objective is not to favour one technology over another but to figure out how we can get those critical services to many more Nigerians. So, we’ll be a mix of technologies but the objective is not to favour one technology over another or to be prescriptive but the right technology for the right purpose, the most competitive technology that enables us to deliver services to all Nigerians,” Opeke added.
Earlier in his goodwill message, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said broadband infrastructure remains one of the top priorities of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to ensure people around the world have access to equitable and affordable broadband, wherever they are and whatever the circumstances they are in.
He noted that with adequate broadband infrastructure in place, everything else will fall into place.
The 25-member Committee also has representatives from the academia, NCC, Galaxy Backbone, MTN, Google, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA), Defence Space Administration, National Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigerian Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT) Limited, Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), GSM Association, among others.
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