Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu and Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta
More than two years after hurrying to name bid winners for Lagos and North Central zones Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos), the telecoms regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has maintained sealed lips on when other zones will know their InfraCos.
In his presentation at the West Africa Convergence Conference (WACC 2017), organised by Knowhow Me, in Lagos, Director of Spectrum Administration at NCC, Austine Nwaulune, said MainOne, and IHS have been licensed to provide InfraCo services to both Lagos, and North Central, saying the licensing of the remaining five zones; North-East, North-West, South-East, South-South and South-West are in the pipeline.
He was however, quick to reveal that the Commission is concluding settlement on the lingering subsidy agreements that will ensure the smooth take-off of the already licensed InfraCos for Lagos and North Central which include MainOne, and HIS.
Nwaulune noted that the subsidy agreement is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme in the provision of price regulated broadband services in Nigeria.
Explaining more, he said the agreement with MainOne, and IHS is being done in a way that would facilitate affordable access to more than 30 million Nigerians as part of the agenda to speed up Nigeria’s broadband target for 2020.
NCC further agreed that not much has been achieved in last mile and as the Nigeria’s Internet presence is heavily depended on mobile services.
“As at today, Nigeria’s Active Mobile Broadband Penetration has reached 21.8 per cent relative to less than 10 per cent two years ago. Percentage of Broadband Internet Penetration has reached a milestone of 47.44 per cent with about 93 million people having access to Internet. The current teledensity stands at 99.93 per cent,” Nwaulune averred.
