Pantami woos Swedish government on broadband infrastructure

• 774 LGAs to get 10GB fibre capacity

The Swedish Government has been called upon to invest in Nigeria’s burgeoning telecommunications sector, especially in the broadband sub-sector of the industry.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami, made this call in Abuja on Wednesday, at a dinner hosted by the Swedish Ambassador to Nigeria, Carl-Michael Grans.

Pantami, who was represented by the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said Nigeria has embarked on a digital transformation journey and efforts are ongoing to ensure evacuation of the massive data capacity at landing points to hinterland.

“We have a plan to move the massive capacity from landing point to hinterland. To do that, we know we have to put in place the necessary infrastructure that will facilitate it. We would therefore like the Swedish Government to buy into this great idea of deploying this massive broadband infrastructure which is fibre-driven,” he observed.

According to him, the project will see a quantum access of 10gbps in each of the 774 local governments of the country. “We appreciate the important intervention that you are giving to this country, especially to this sector of the economy we are managing on behalf of the Federal Government. The statistics are there for all to see. The broadband penetration, for instance is about 40% but this is 40% of close to 200 million people, which translates to about 80 million Nigerians having access to high speed internet together with the volume associated with broadband networks,” he explained.

The Minister noted that the country’s population is close to 200 million and the government would not rest on its laurels until everyone has access to high speed Internet as well as the volume associated with the network.

On the Internet penetration, Pantami observed that figures recently released by the NCC indicated that almost 125 million Nigerians have access, but lamented that close to 31 million Nigerians are still within un-served and underserved areas.

Nigeria achieved its five-year National Broadband target of 30 per cent in December 2018 and since then, the level of penetration has remained steady.

Checks by The Guardian showed that as at January, some 73.5 million people in the country have broadband access, which is 38.5 per cent of the country’s population.

It could be recalled that the broadband penetration was less than six per cent when President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Danbatta as the chief executive officer of the NCC.