Stakeholders Lash Govt, Agencies Over Failed Broadband Services

 L-R: Lanre Oluwole, Operation Manager, MultiChoice Nigeria; Okoduwa Matthew, Assistant Director, Monitoring and Enforcement, National Broadcasting Commission; and Chioma Afe, Marketing Manager, DStv during the DStv Customer Forum held in Ikorodu, Lagos, Nigeria.

DIVERGENT views blaming government and its agencies as well as operators over the lack of adequate broadband access in the country were expressed recently at a stakeholder’s forum in Lagos,Nigeria.

The views which were expressed by stakeholders saying government, the regulator and the operators are paying lip service to the necessity of broadband for national development.

The forum which was organized by Ajomedia Limited, publishers of e-World magazine and had as its theme: Broadband for Sustainable Development reviewed why there is inadequate supply of broadband access even in the mist of fibre optic cables resting at the shores of the nation.

The president of the Digital Bridge Institute, Prof Raymond Akwule who chaired the event restated that there had indeed been substantial debate on the issue of access to affordable and reliable broadband in the media noting that what is actually needed is to get the commodity to the final consumer at a cost they can bear and  really reliable.

According to him, the major challenge in the broadband access for the nation is cost and a workable blueprint for deployment adding that it must get to the hinterland of the country.

He said that the broadband has strong potentials for national development but noted that government needs to do periodic review of it by aggregating all landed fiber optic cables and ensuring that they get to the hinterland.

However, President of the Association Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, (ATCON), Engr. Lanre Ajayi said that content is still a key factor why there seems to be low broadband availability in the country.

He noted that the nation lacks good quality local content that will make investors to critically consider more investment in broadband rollout instead of operators paying more attention to voice in the allocation of their resources.

He explained that government is yet to put all critical public services online so as to spur the need for more infrastructure deployment to the hinterland.

Speaking further on the lack of adequate infrastructure on broadband, he said there was no need for the establishment of the Infraco, a company setup by the Nigeria Communications Commission to tackle the dearth adequate broadband.

He said Infraco will bring back the monopoly era of the moribund NITEL saying that if the NCC wants to avoid that it should make sure more than one Infraco is established in each of the geo-political zones of the country so as to make room for variety.

While calling for the release of more spectrum by the NCC to those who need them, Ajayi noted that broadband services are to enhance effective social and economic service delivery in the country.

President of the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), Engr. Bayo Banjo knocked the Ministry of Communications Technology and the NCC for not being sincere in the tackling of the broadband challenge in the country.

He queried the duo for bringing in experts into the country and paying so much to tackle issues of broadband at expense of their Nigerian counterpart agreeing that there is no need for the Infraco.

He explained that there was no assurance that the operators of the Infraco would be free of government control noting that government would not put money down in a project without some form of control that may affect the smooth running of the project.

He stated that despite the presence of big operators in the city of Lagos and the huge infrastructure in Lagos, Lagosians are yet to savour the worth of real broadband internet access.

He noted that so much noise is being made by service provider about the 3G or 4G in an environment where there is means knowing who is deploying which.

According to him, there is no broadband yet in Lagos stressing that Lagos is the foundation of broadband infrastructure in the country yet it cannot boast of having efficient internet services from all the operators in state where they have their headquarters.

He called on government to subsidize broadband for the next four yours adding that beyond making it mandatory for new roads in the country to have ducts, it should also make it mandatory for roads undergoing repairs to have ducts.

The NIG leader also lashed the NIGCOMSAT for being a company whose potentials is yet to have positive impact on the nation saying that the organization has failed to addressed the needs of the nation.

Former ATCON president and chairman, Teledom International, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem said that broadband services still remains a failure because government is yet to assemble experts in the country together to tackle issues of national interest.

He explained that the nation has not been able to use broadband to boost national security surveillance saying that “We are living witness of the security problem in the country. Why are we unable to use technology to scan the arrest of criminals? Why can’t we spot them using wifi installed across the city. Why can’t we arrest the criminals using the CCTV.

President of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association, (NiRA) Mrs. Mary Uduma described the broadband as the highway to prosperity but said there are no local content yet on the internet saying we have to encourage our people to be online.

She noted that there is no link yet between government policy and the infrastructures saying that spectrum and IP address are key to broadband and that government must bridge the gap.

According to her, there is the need to work towards the adoption of IPV 6 saying that the industry is not sure “if our equipment are IPV 6 is complaint so that we are at par with other parts of the world”.

Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative, Gbenga Sesan said that as far as broadband service is concern in the country, no operator is giving Nigerians value for their money saying that internet speed is still very poor in the country despite huge presence of fiber optic cables in the city of Lagos.

He however blamed customers for not holding the operators responsible for poor delivery of services which they promised in their several advert campaign saying that if they discovered that an operator is not meeting their expectation they should dumped it and move to the next one or better still take them to court for bridge of contract.