The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has plans to work with operators to more than double the nation’s broadband coverage
Broadband access in Nigeria is currently accelerating at an impressive rate, but it builds on very humble beginnings. In 2000, Africa’s most populous nation had a meagre 79,000 internet users out of a population of 122.5 million – less than 0.1% of the country’s inhabitants.
But that has all changed in last two decades. Nigeria’s broadband development has seen incredible growth. Most recently, the National Broadband Plan (NBP) 2013–2018 aimed to quintuple the nation’s broadband coverage and succeeding in doing so, bolstering it from 4–5% in 2013 to 31.5% in 2018.
Speaking about the new NBP, MD/CEO of Main One Cable Company Limited and the chairperson of the NBP committee, Funke Opeke said, “I believe our objective is not to favour one technology over another but to figure out how we can get those critical services to many more Nigerians.
“We’ll be a mix of technologies, but the objective is not to favour one technology over another or to be prescriptive, but [to use] the right technology for the right purpose — the most competitive technology that enables us deliver services to all Nigerians,” she said.
