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Broadband infrastructure operators to get cash incentives

By BusinessNews Staff on November 23, 2013

Seven new infrastructure operators to be licensed in January 2014 are to get cash incentives for rollout of broadband networks, the Nigerian Communications Commission has said.

The Executive Vice-Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said this at a news conference organised by the commission at the ongoing ITU Telecom World in Bangkok, Thailand, on Thursday.

The regulatory agency has divided the country into seven regions for the award of the infrastructure licences, according to a statement by the commission. While the classification follows the six geopolitical zones of the country, Lagos has been constituted as a region on its own. Each licensee will be limited to a region.

Juwah said the cash incentive would be awarded to the operators, who requested for it and met the stipulated rollout goals.

He said several consulting firms, including the KPMG, were working out the modalities for the award of the cash incentives to deserving operators in order to meet the rollout plan and penetration objectives of the government in accordance with a recently approved National Broadband Plan.

He said, “Although we have done well in the voice market, we have actually done poorly in the broadband market. In broadband, we have achieved only 6.1 per cent penetration. Because of this, the government decided to produce a National Broadband Plan, which has been approved for 2013 to 2018.

“The plan set very tight targets. For example, it stipulates that our penetration of six per cent has to be increased fivefold to 30 per cent by 2017. It also stipulates that 70 per cent of Nigerian subscribers or population must have 3G coverage by 2017.

“It additionally stipulates that 40 per cent of Nigerian households must have broadband by 2017. These are very tight targets from where we are at the moment. The plan provides a strategy called open access.”

He added, “The NCC has just come up with an open access model, which divided Nigeria into seven regions. The regions will constitute licensing areas for infrastructure companies to implement broadband.

“The franchises that belong to these areas can only be obtained through a competitive bid in an auction. The government is prepared to offer incentives in terms of cash or kind to winners of these licences. With the licensing of metropolitan infrastructure companies, the lacuna of infrastructure in the metropolitan areas will be solved.”

The NCC boss stated that the Information Memorandum for the licensing process would soon be released while the process would be completed by January 2014.

[Punch]

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