TELECOMMUNICATIONSoperators in the country have called on the Federal Government to issue a National Policy on Communications (NPC) that incorporates government's commitment to the development of broadband in the country.Stakeholders in the Information and Communications Technology sector earlier called for more public private partnership initiatives and robust infrastructure to improve the gains of the sector.Speaking on Wednesday at the West African Information and Communications Technology Congress (WAFICT) in Lagos, the Minister of Communications Technology, Omobola Johnson, noted that a number of efforts had been made by both the government and the private sector to develop the industry, especially in the areas of broadband development, but that a lot more needed to be done to link up the unserved and the underserved areas of the country.Johnson, who opened the WAFICT, the third edition, with the theme 'An Emerging New Frontiers: Opportunities and Potential for Development of Broadband Services for Sustainable Growth in West Africa,' organised by IT and Telecom Digest, said government had over the years noted its responsibility to provide the basic infrastructure for the country's development and realized the constraint on the available resources and had provided the enabling legal framework for the private sector to thrive.The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Rajan Swaroop, said yesterday at the closing ceremony of the programme that the National Policy on Telecommunication (NPT) issued in 2000, a pre-Broadband era, did not effectively capture the required framework that would boost broadband development in the country, and therefore, recommended a review of existing guidelines.Swaroop explained that countries that had recorded monumental success in the area of broadband development and penetration started by initiating favourable policies accompanied by smart regulations.The Airtel Nigeria MD cited countries such as Finland, Malaysia, Morocco, Sweden and the United States to buttress his point, arguing that strong regulations and right policies enabled successful penetration of broadband in those countries.Corroborating the need for a national policy on broadband and protection of telecoms infrastructure, the CEO, MTN Nigeria, Brett Goschen, noted that the next phase of growth of the Nigerian telecommunications industry would be shaped by stakeholders' ability to develop broadband services for different categories of the market.Goschen who was represented by Corporate Services Executive, MTN Nigeria, Akinwale Goodluck, said that the Nigerian telecommunications sector in the next 10 years would be driven by broadband services.'Broadband is regarded as very high speed, always-on, allowing quick transfer/exchange of huge amounts of data, video, graphics and other information at bandwidth greater than 512 Kbit/s. Therefore, speed is at the core of broadband, and speed is what the customers need,' said Goschen.He enumerated some of the socio-economic benefits of broadband penetration as social media inclusion of Nigeria, telemedicine to enhance healthcare delivery, improved agriculture, egovernment, education, and business efficiencies powered by solutions like the MTN epresence.
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