OVER the past four years, Nigeria's broadband market has witnessed a dramatic increase in broadband deployment. In fact, the landing of both MainOne's $240 million fibre optic cable and Glo1's $800 million submarine cables, complementing the existing Nigeria Telecommunications Limited's $600 million SAT 3 have further deepened the existence of bandwidth resources in the country.Besides, telecommunications service provider, MTN Nigeria has promised that its $650 million WACS fibre optic cable with an upgraded capacity of 5.12 Tbit/s and 14, 000 km in length will go commercial in April.By so doing, the country can boast of close to 10.5 Tbits/s of bandwidth capacity by the end of the second quarter in 2012.According to analyst, the four submarine fibre cables are expected to increase Internet capacity in the country by 3,967 per cent by the end of 2012.Indeed, a recent analysis from Frost & Sullivan West African Broadband Market Tracker, covering Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast, disclosed that the market earned revenues of $929.9 million in 2009 and estimated this to reach $1.932 billion in 2016, which will be earned by increasing usage of the facility.According to Frost & Sullivan, 'Internet service providers (ISPs) still remain the dominant players in the region, except for Nigeria where mobile broadband connections have outpaced fixed broadband connections. In comparison to other countries, high investments are made in infrastructure development and broadband services present the highest areas for growth opportunities due to the decline in voice revenues.'The report further noted that, facing challenges and restraints in the broadband market, ISPs and mobile operators are expected to improve the quality of services through continuous infrastructure investment like network capacity upgrade and deployments of new technologies.However, stakeholders in Nigeria's ICT parlance are worried that despite the huge capacity of bandwidth at the country's disposal, access has remained a challenge.Arguably, there were submissions that, the facilities are just coming to fore in the country, but noted that in the emerging broadband world, capacity issues have come to the front burner and regulation inevitably must take a policy angle.They reckoned that globally, issues around broadband development have continued to be on the front burner because of the importance of broadband in the provision of various converged services types, especially the growing demand for speed and efficiency and effectiveness in the provision of data.Indeed, the International Telecommunication Union has continued to harp on its importance and implored countries to explore ways and put up policies that will drive its development and make it the digital right of every citizen through affordability and access.The ICT stakeholders, were gathered at this year's eWorld organised broadband forum with the theme: 'Broadband Ecosystem: Issues for Regulators and Operators.'Delivering the keynote address, the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson said broadband or fast access to the Internet has become a key success factor for national socio-economic development.Johnson averred that instrumental to this social economic development is the often-quoted statistic of the causal relationship between broadband penetration and GDP ' every 10 per cent increased in broadband penetration deliver 1.6 per cent growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).The minister, however, noted that despite this huge facility in the country, Nigeria is still beset with gross under utilisation.Johnson, who was represented at the event by the Acting Director, Spectrum management, Festus Daudu, said the landing of a number of international undersea cables in Nigeria provides tremendous international bandwidth at significantly lower prices capacity, 'but the cost of taking that capacity inland i.e. national transmission, is significantly above that of the international submarine transmission which travels a longer distance on a more expensive infrastructure. Also, regional; and city connectivity (city rings exist on only two or three cities) is still quite low and needs to be encouraged.'According to her, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been mandated to look into the challenges hampering last-mile deployment of fibre optic cables by telecoms companies with a view to accelerating broadband Internet access in the country.She explained that ministry had recently asked the NCC to look seriously into and implement regulatory actions that will reflect reasonable and commensurate profits for operators that invest in transmission networks and remove some of the overtly competitive practices are driving the cost of national transmission upwards.According to her, the ministry will be pursuing full interconnectivity between National Long Distance Operator in accordance with the provision of the Act in sections 96-97 mandates interconnection between all network and facilities services providers, - the open access provision of Law.'With only six per cent broadband penetration, 49 million Nigerians or approximately 28 per cent of the country's population currently have access to the Internet.According to Johnson, doubling broadband penetration by 2015 was a goal that the Federal Government had set for the ICT industry, adding that there was the need to more than double the number of Nigerians that are currently accessing the Internet.Already, in a recent interview with The Guardian, the Chief Executive Officer of MainOne Cables, Ms. Funke Opeke had stressed that inhibitors to broadband and ICT growth in the country included, limited national backbone, high cost of access to devices systems and applications, limited local content in hardware and software system and policy limitations that favour direct foreign investment over sustainable home grown development.Opeke said, opening up of existing national and cross border infrastructure to more efficient use would benefit consumers.But in the response of the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah represented by the director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, at the eWorld Forum, the commission is committed to expanding broadband frontiers in the country and has indeed, commence the implementation with the launch of preliminary studies that will situate the plan.According to Juwah, NCC is focused on the 'Open Access' model in which the role of the network operator is distinct from those of the Service Providers, adding that, the access provider is mandated to offer access to the service providers on a non-discriminatory basis in a competitively neutral environment.This, according to him is to ensure that service providers are on equal platform and the access provider has no choice but to attend to the needs of the service providers, or individual demands.'Affordability of service is going to also attract the attention of the regulator in the broadband regime. This may entail the provision of some level of incentives to the access providers to ensure that the services are broadband appropriately with a view to achieving affordability', he added.The NCC EVC, who bemoaned the impact of multiple regulation and taxation on the sector said: 'One major issue that is of concern to the regulator as it would affect broadband expansion in particular, and is currently affecting the telecommunications infrastructure generally is the issue of multiple regulation and multiple taxation.'There have been situations where different levels of governments or government agencies introduce regulations that are counter to those prescribed by the telecom regulatory authority. There are other instances where communities, local governments, state governments, and the like, impose taxes that negatively affect efforts being made to improve affordability and quality of service. All these affects access to telecoms services.'Corroborating the challenges to access, President of Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Titi Omo-Ettu said that the development of infrastructure and content was key in driving broadband development in Nigeria.Omo-Ettu, an engineer opined that there was need to transform our business models and carry out careful planning in our bid to develop broadband. He said that in the issue of broadband the industry is united, as stakeholders are pulling at different directions unlike in the first effort to liberalise and develop the voice market when all stakeholders were not agreed on the best approach.Going forward in the issue of broadband, 'we must lower prices and provide local content in the broadband pipes in Nigeria.'If any one brings a solution and it does not help Nigeria and employ Nigerians it is not good for us. If anyone brings a solution that will not engage Nigerians, we must ask our government not to accept it. If they offer lower prices, Nigerians must be involved in the process.In his own contribution, Mr. Lanre Ajayi said in the early days of Internet services provision in Nigeria, the issue had always been about access. While he admitted that, Nigerians needed to get access to the broadband submarine cables that have been made available and utilise the capacity provided, a key issue that needs to be addressed is how to create the required demand for the capacity.'We should shift our focus from access to applications and content, because the power of the Internet gets beyond getting people to the Internet. We need to get content out there that will motivate people to access the platforms. The issue then is how do we get content (local) into the platforms'' Ajayi queried.Ajayi said the country needed to get a lot of developers out there that can develop applications that will increase the country's online activities, 'we need to get a lot of our services, documents and government processes online. This will attract people to go online. Once government takes the lead, businesses, enterprises will take the cue.'The country manager, Google, Juliet Ehimian said Google is interested in the growth of the broadband Ecosystem and the provision of Nigerian local content, as it was an important issue in the development of the broadband ecosystem.According to her there are a lot of latent demand for online local content as there are a lot of Nigerians who are currently engaging online. She gave several examples of Nigerians who are collaborating with Google to provide local content online. Ehimian said Nigerians are looking for locally relevant information online.In her contribution Mrs. Ronke Oyetunde, Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs of MTN, said as the operators move from voice to 4G in the bid to actualize the broadband ecosystem there are hurdles that needs to be cleared from their path for a sustainable, speedy and efficient deployment to take place.'The hurdles we have today in dealing with data services provision are still the hurdles that bedevil the networks in voice services provision. We were able to roll out voice services through radio. For us to do data (broadband) we have to get out the fibre out there, but we still have hurdles, such as multiple taxation and right of way challenges. Until we solve them we will still not be able to get the full benefit of broadband. There is need for coordination in roll out approvals; in terms of rolling out our technologies, operators are aggressive.
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