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Govt to connect 1.6m rural Nigerians with new 158 BTS

By ADEYEMI ADEPETUN
12 February 2015   |   7:23 pm
. NIPOST partners Konga to boost $10b eCommerce sector THE Federal Government is hoping to connect about 1.6 million Nigerians in rural communities in the country to various Information and Communications Technology platforms before the end of the year.     To achieve this, government said new 158 Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) sites are currently…

. NIPOST partners Konga to boost $10b eCommerce sector

THE Federal Government is hoping to connect about 1.6 million Nigerians in rural communities in the country to various Information and Communications Technology platforms before the end of the year.

    To achieve this, government said new 158 Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) sites are currently at various stages of completion and targeted further development in the rural areas of the country.

  Meanwhile, yesterday in Lagos, the Nigerian Postal Service launched its partnership with Konga.com, Nigeria’s largest online mall, with the opening of a collection centre at the University of Lagos Post Office.

    According to a Ministry of Communications Technology’s document, the 158 BTS are newly being constructed by government though the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF).

    Indeed, the USPF was established by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to support extension of telecommunications services to under-served or un-served areas in the country.

    For effect, USPF does this by providing subsidy, in all forms, to telecommunications operators willing to deploy services in rural, underserved or un-served areas, which are perceived not always commercially viable to investors.

    The ComTech documents informed that through the service providers’ expansion efforts, 2G and 3G site deployments increased from about 22,578 to 28,289 2G sites, adding that from less than 10,000 to 15, 048 3G sites between 2013 and 2014, adding that about 170 BTS in total have been deployed by the USPF to unserved and underserved areas by 2014.

    The ministry said one cluster of 22 base stations impacted 111 rural communities with an estimated population of 664,500.

    According to the Minister of Communications Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson the initiative was part of the Connect Nigeria: Microwave Transmission, where a USPF study was carried out to establish clusters of voice telephony and transport network gaps in the country.

    She said the study led to the creation of 207 countrywide ICT cluster gaps, stressing that each cluster has the requisite attributes including sizable population; major towns; economic activities and institutions

     Johnson, who said these gaps are expected to be filled by 2018, noted that this action would result in about 40 million Nigerians gaining access to voice services.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

  The document also informed that the USPF’s Backbone Infrastructure Project (BTRAIN), a subsidy-based project designed to facilitate the connection of rural and semi-urban areas to the national transmission backbone. It stressed that the intention was to facilitate the build-out of backbone transmission infrastructure to all local government areas in Nigeria, using targeted subsidies.

     The ministry disclosed that the project actually started in 2011 and about 1200 Km of fibre optic cabling has been run so far.

    The UNILAG collection centre is the first in a series of collaborations by the two parties to address logistics and delivery issues experienced by eCommerce operators in Nigeria. 

   Already, Nigeria’s eCommerce industry is estimated to worth about $10 billion and records over 300,000 orders placed daily.

    The new collection centre is expected to tackle challenges including shortage of secure and conveniently located places where customers can pick-up their purchases, and also return items that do not meet up to their expectations.

    Besides, with security and convenience being particularly important for customers living in shared accommodation such as hostels in tertiary institutions, such customers need to know that the items they have purchased are safe and waiting to be collected at a place that is easy to reach. 

    According to the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Communications Technology, Efem Nganga, in a statement, the partnership to establish collection centres in tertiary locations is a welcome development for both customers and e-retailers and will result in the rollout 47 collection centres nationwide over a period of two months.

    She said tertiary institutions provide a captive and sizeable market of consumers that are digitally savvy and comfortable with buying online.  These institutions are also located in, or close to bustling residential areas and centres of commercial activity. The new collection centres will therefore serve not only students but a broad spectrum of the population including the larger academic, business and social community in and around the campus.

    Remarking on the launch of the partnership between NIPOST and Konga, the Minister of Communication Technology, reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to transforming NIPOST into a viable, socially conscious yet profit-orientated entity.

    She said, “the first Post office in Nigeria was established over 160 years ago and NIPOST has been fulfilling its mandate of providing universal access to postal services ever since. Furthermore, the Post office has grown to become the most extensive retail network in Nigeria. It is only logical that the eCommerce industry leverage the experience and facilities of NIPOST to provide secure and more convenient services to their customers.”

 

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