Nigeria needs 80,000 base stations to drive Smart Nigeria Project—Danbatta, EVC of NCC
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has opened up on the volume of infrastructure needed by Nigeria to actualize the dream of joining fast developing and well developed countries in making Internet of Things (IoT) a reality using 4G and 5g networks.
According to him, lead in the needs include at least 70,000 to 80,000 telecommunication base stations across the country to actualize her dreams of both communications access and financial inclusion.
Danbatta, who made this known at a sitting of the House Representatives’ Ad Hoc Committee investigating the health implications of mounting telecommunications masts close to building, yesterday in Abuja, said the country currently has less than 50,000 base stations.
In his submission, he averred that “3G, 4G going to 5G networks are going to usher this country into smart applications, the Internet of Things or the smart world and cities we are talking about. And of course because of the additional burden on infrastructure, the present capacity of telecom infrastructure is grossly inadequate to cater for these additional platforms or services we talk about”.
“Therefore we will need from 70,000 to 80,000 base transceiver masts to be able to provide the effective capacity that’s needed to deploy 4G going to 5G,” he said while responding to questions from members of the ad hoc committee.
The EVC of NCC also called on other approving agencies at all levels of government in the country synergize with NCC a view to achieving the target, noting that the United Kingdom (UK), with a population of almost one third of Nigeria already has close to 60,000 masts.
On concerns about health implications to exposure to electromagnetic field, Danbatta said researches so far conducted in the area have not indicated any adverse health concerns.
“With regards to other professional bodies like Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) we don’t have any quarrel with their positions. The only question is when we say exposure to electromagnetic field is hazardous to health what level are we talking about? We have to define the level of exposure that is hazardous to human beings.
“Of course if you generate a massive electromagnetic field of unprecedented proportion and put a person inside, there will be medical consequences. But what we are saying is that: provided the limit specified is observed and NCC is there to ensure compliance with that limit, there is no health hazard. There is a limit of safety below which electromagnetic fields do not cause any harm to health,” he explained.
