The Federal Government says it is targeting 70 per cent broadband penetration and no more than N390 per gigabyte by 2025.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, said this while delivering a keynote speech at an Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) conference and exhibition, in Abuja on Monday.
The Nigerian News Agency (NAN) reports that the program was labeled “National Strategic Mobilization for Upgrading the National Broadband Target of 70 Percent Conferences and Exhibitions”.
It had the theme, “Making the newly established goal of 70 percent broadband penetration a reality.”
Pantami, who was represented by the Director of the Department of IT Infrastructure Solutions of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr. Usman Gambo Abdullahi, said that broadband was the backbone of an economy digital.
He said the event was aimed at analyzing the current level of broadband penetration and considering areas for improvement, not only to reach 70 percent broadband penetration, but also to exceed it.
“We are all aware that broadband supports the development of the digital economy and a focus on growing the national digital economy will also enhance and diversify the nation’s traditional economy.
“The plan is carefully designed to offer data download speeds in Nigeria. A minimum of 25 Mbps in urban areas and 10 Mbps in rural areas.
“With effective coverage available to at least 90 per cent of the population by 2025 at a price of no more than N390 per 1GB of data, as well as a 70 per cent penetration rate by 2025,” it said.
He said industry experts had identified that a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration would increase an economy’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by between 1.6 percent and 4.6 percent.
He recalled that as of July 2021, broadband penetration was 39.79 percent.
It added that the current assessment of the broadband plan’s achievements so far revealed that as of the first quarter of 2022, broadband penetration stood at 42.27 percent.
He said some of the broadband challenges included multiple taxes and regulations, non-compliance with agreed right-of-way (RoW) charges, difficulty obtaining approvals and permits.
He said onerous taxes and levies were also some of the huge burdens on the industry and had stifled needed investment in telecommunications infrastructure.
He said that this steady increase was the result of tireless efforts to address those challenges.
However, he said the government was confident that the figure would continue to rise and surpass the set medium-term target of 50 per cent penetration by 2023.
“Our confidence in this is based on the strength of the positive rates in 3G and 4G population coverage, which currently stand at 83.65 percent and 62.55 percent, respectively,” the minister said.
Malam Kashifu Inuwa, Director General, National Information Technology Development (NITDA), in his paper, highlighted the agency’s contribution to the demand for 70 percent broadband penetration, which was the free domain registration of NIRA.
Inuwa said this initiative sought to ensure collaboration between NIRA (.ng registry), NITDA and CAC to bring more Nigerian businesses online by allocating a free .ng domain to every new business registered with CAC for the first two years. .
He added that the Digital Content in Indigenous Languages aimed at the development of digital content in local languages for the empowerment of citizens to take advantage of the opportunities created by broadband, Training and Awareness on Digital Literacy.
He said the goal of these initiatives was to develop or adopt an explicit digital literacy standard with consistent training and certification required throughout the life of the plan.
“Our goal is to achieve at least one million developers with skills in various aspects of application development in the next 18 months.
“Our long-term goal is to champion the recalibration of the curriculum of higher education institutions, which remain the largest channel in the production of digital talent.
“It will ensure the implementation of the Nigerian e-Government Interoperability Framework (Ne-GIF).
“The Framework specifies concepts, principles, policies, recommendations, standards and best practices for MDAs to work together toward seamless, cross-portfolio service delivery,” he said.
Earlier, ATCON President Mr. Ikechukwu Nnamani, in his opening speech, said that the event was an interactive session.
Nnamani said that this was something that would boost the country in a positive way and lead to development in all sectors of the economy.
“We are exploring and taking stock of where we are in terms of the broadband target that has been set.
“We all know that this is critical to the digital economy that we are trying to build, so the broadband plan must be implemented and achieved,” he said.
NAN reports that the conference had panel sessions; the first session was on the status of broadband deployment in Nigeria.
The second session was about the impact of broadband infrastructure on Over The Top (OTT) service providers, fintech/e-commerce, equipment providers, VAS providers, satellite operators, Internet service providers, manufacturers representatives and data center operators.