Specifically, the paper builds on the Broadband Section (7.9) of the policy which states that “It is widely acknowledged that broadband infrastructure is an enabler for economic and social growth in the digital economy.
Therefore as part of the universal service obligation, broadband access shall be made universally available to all citizens.” This section of the policy sets the National Broadband objectives as
- – To accelerate the penetration of affordable broadband Internet in the country and
- – to foster broadband usage for national development.
The strategies put forward for achieving these objectives are that the Government shall:
- Provide periodic review of the broadband penetration targets in order to determine further action for broadband expansion;
- Promote both supply- and demand-side policies that create incentives for broadband backbone and access network deployment;
- Facilitate broadband development and deployment, leveraging on existing universal service frameworks;
- Provide special incentives to operators to encourage them to increase their investment in broadband rollout;
- Promote e-Government and other e-services that would foster broadband usages.
The GSM revolution
With licenses from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Econet (now Airtel), NITEL’s MTEL and MTN rolled out the first Global system for Mobile Communication (GSM) services in August 2001. Globacom had initially encountered process challenges but was subsequently awarded the 2nd National Carrier license and joined the market in 2002. Recently, Etisalat obtained a license and became the fourth GSM operator in the country given that MTEL has ceased operations.
In the ten years since the introduction of the GSM in Nigeria, it has significantly impacted our economy in a variety of ways, enhanced personal and corporate communications and generally improved the quality of life across the country. The associated growth of our telecoms industry has seen it become Africa’s largest telecoms market and one of the fastest growing telecoms markets on the planet.
This GSM-driven telecoms revolution in Nigeria has seen us go from 400,000 fixed land lines and 25,000 analogue mobile lines in 2001 to over 80 million GSM lines and about 7 million CDMA ones today. In addition to the social gains highlighted, the industry has attracted over $18 billion in investments, contributed over N300 billion in revenue to Government purses from spectrum sales and now delivers 4 percent of the Country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
SMS, BBM and the rise of data services
The GSM revolution has not been without its attendant challenges of quality of service and inadequate coverage sometimes leaving subscribers ithout service and bewildered. However with the arrival of the GSM networks came the Short-Messaging-System (SMS) data services which enabled subscribers communicate with each other in a store and forward method that was cost-effective and relatively reliable.
The resulting data services explosion was taken to a new level with the arrival of RIM’s blackberry phone which provided a phenomenal battery life and gave Nigerians access to a flat rate messenger service. There are few other data-based applications available but even with this situation, demand is high as Nigeria’s large youthful population (60% under 35 years old) with rising economic potential are taking advantage of the availability of the increasing number of cost effective internet access solutions and already 40% of all internet traffic in Africa originates from Nigeria.
There are (as at Dec 2011) now 45,982,200 Nigerians using the Internet, which is more than a third of all internet users in Africa but just 28.3% of our population thus implying there is still additional room for growth especially as the Broadband penetration rate according to the Policy document was a meagre 6.1% in 2010.
In addition to corporate requirements, a key driver of consumer demand for data especially broadband services is the use of social media which has become a fact of life in Nigeria with a growing population of users already in excess of 4 million of which are on Facebook alone.
Without a doubt, broadband data services have become the next frontier in Nigeria’s telecoms industry even as the voice segment of the industry eaches saturation point. Driving this growth in demand will be an accelerating need for broadband services as users migrate to interactive and treaming video based applications which are fast becoming the norm for data services across the world today.
Broadband defined
Until July 2010, broadband was defined as 200 kbps in each direction but to keep pace with the ever evolving world of technology, the United States FCC (their equivalent of our NCC) increased the minimum speeds required for broadband to 4 Mbps down and 1Mbps up. Even so, ISPs in Nigeria today proudly advertise 1 Mbps (and even less) as high speed broadband.
What we need is a customer centric definition of broadband that is easily understood by all! To do that, we must understand the nature of the Nigerian data services consumer and their needs which are fortunately not too different from those of their counterparts worldwide. For example, conventional wisdom today says that broadband must be able to deliver flicker-free streaming of video content to customer devices.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Chris Uwaje & Tomi Davies
Quelle/Source: Vanguard, 29.02.2012
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