BROADBAND: FG ready to streamline pricing of R.O.W

jeff juwana

Moderator
According to the Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs . Omobola Johnson, the Federal government is working to remove any bottlenecks to the speedy roll out of infrastructure, collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Works to streamline and standardize the processes and pricing of Right-of-Way (ROW) on Federal Highways across the country.

This is as the national broadband strategy and roadmap developed by a Presidential Committee to facilitate the achievement of five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2017 has been submitted and approved by the federal government.

The Minister in her keynote address at the just concluded second National Council on Communication Technology held in in Akure, the Ondo State said that has been adopted by the National Council of Works and is now applicable to state highways as well.

“ The National Economic Council last month formally endorsed these guidelines and has also committed to streamlining and standardizing the levies that are charged on telecoms infrastructure. Working with the Ministry of Environment we have finally been able to align the NESREA and NCC regulations on base stations.

“These are extremely significant achievements and milsetones as they have established the predictability of the cost of infrastructure development in the ICT sector, reduced the cost of network deployment by ensuring that for every naira that is spent on infrastructure more is spent on actual infrastructure and less on administration and taxes, as well as shortened the period for application processing.

“I know that these guidelines have been discussed in the last few days and it is my expectation that you will all work with us to ensure that these guidelines are adhered to at the state level,” she explained.
According to Johnson, the efforts being made by the Federal Government will not yield optimum results without active participation of the states and local governments adding that there was need to address the important issue of the role of the states in many of the initiatives put in place at the federal level.
Common areas of interest, according to her will include the implementation of the National Broadband plan, National Policy on ICT, Digital and financial inclusion, local content framework, use of frequency spectrum and National Strategic E-government framework and collection of data on ICT sector.

“There is no doubt that the states and local governments are in a good position to contribute their quota in this respect. State governments have more complete knowledge of their localities and can work closely with service providers in their respective states to identify where and what kinds of services should be made available and where there are under-served and un-served areas.

“States are also in a better position to obtain the most accurate data possible on use of broadband and to continuously update and refresh the data provided by service providers to make it more and more accurate over time. States can implement independent verification programs to confirm service availability and actual experienced upload and download speeds” she further explained.
Four things, according to the Minister define mandate for this industry. “We have to connect Nigeria with a ubiquitous physical fibre, satellite and microwave telecommunications network that reaches the nooks and crannies of this country.

“We have to connect Nigerians through the wide ownership of cost effective devices or access to devices where people can still not afford them and we have to aggressively drive the participation of Nigerians in ICT businesses and improve local and domestic value add in the sector.




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