The Nigeria Internet Group has called for a robust investment in building telecommunications infrastructure in the country.
The President, NIG, Mr. Bayo Banjo, while addressing newsmen in Lagos on Friday, said good investment in telecoms infrastructure, like broadband, was very important considering the multiplier effect it would have on the Nigerian people and the economy at large.
He said various funds being committed to some projects in the sector, like the rural telephony project, could have been used to build ducts for the channelling of broadband in the country.
He said bandwidth was technically free, but its high cost over the years was as a result of the cost of transportation.
According to him, the involvement of the private sector investors in bringing in fibre optics and satellite facilities has made it imperative to attach some cost elements to the infrastructure as such investors needed to recoup their investments.
Speaking on the development of the Internet in Nigeria, he said, “The roles of the Internet have changed. There is now the need for government laws that protect intellectual property and innovations. This will help entrepreneurs to flourish in the sector. This has been successfully done (to some exte`nt) in the country’s entertainment industry.”
He said frequency allocation should be given out to cover more areas in the country other than just Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and a few other towns. This, he said, would ensure fast penetration of the Internet in the country.
Banjo explained that government needed to find a way to reduce the cost of bandwidth to enable the private sector provide infrastructure.
In proffering solutions, he said, “Government has a cable. It can crash the price of SAT 3 reasonably. We also have satellite, which was acquired using tax payers’ money. Government can play its role without distorting the market.
“The economic benefits of providing free bandwidth, far outweighs the cost of provision.”
He stressed the need to censor the Internet in Nigeria, saying there was a high level of abuse in the polity via the Internet. According to him, the Judiciary needs to be equipped with the right legislations.
“In developed countries, people are taken to court for using foul languages on the Internet. But in Nigeria, anybody says anything on the Internet and nothing is done,” he complained.
The Federal Government had said it would encourage service providers to increase the number of telecommunications base stations in the country from the present 27,000 to 60,000 to meet the national target of five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2018.
This will represent about 122 per cent growth level in the number of base stations in the country.
The Federal Government said it would encourage telecommunications companies to realise this feat by harmonising taxes paid by them to minimise cases of multiple taxation.
The government also restated its commitment to reducing operating costs of operators and ensure easier access to the right-of-way to build telecoms infrastructure.
The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, recently said the ministry remained committed to speeding up the building of communications infrastructure to ensure all that all parts of Nigeria had access to telecoms services and high-speed Internet.
The move, she noted, would ensure that Nigerians had affordable and reliable access to devices with the capacity to use them so that the benefits of Information and Communications Technology would be enjoyed by all.
“We hope to grow base stations from 27,000 to 60,000 by 2018. Significantly, more base stations needed to be deployed across the country to meet national target of a five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2018,” Johnson recently said.