Succour is at hand for infrastructure providers in the Nigerian Communication space as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is to give financial incentives to infrastructure providers, Nigeria Communications Week can report.
The financial incentives according to the regulator, is to enable service delivery at affordable prices for the end-user, where it may not be economically viable to do so to enable them operate profitably.
Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman of the NCC made this known as this year’s West African Information & Communications Technology Congress (WAFICT) organised by IT & Telecoms Digest Magazine, tagged ‘Bridging West Africa’s Digital Divide through Broadband’.
“To enable service delivery at affordable prices for the end-user, where it may not be economically viable to do so, the commission will offer financial incentives to the infrastructure providers to enable them operate reasonably profitably.”
“The government through the commission will facilitate agreements and engage in dispute resolution among the various stakeholders,” the EVC added.
Juwah in a key note presentation at the event reeled out strategies already being implemented by the Commission to boost broadband penetration in Nigeria and this include the adoption of the ‘Open Access Model’ for broadband deployment.
This model, according to the EVC, provides a framework for sophisticated infrastructure sharing.
“This structure will ensure vibrancy in the market and prevent dominance as no company will be allowed to play in more than two of the service layers and the equity participation in bidding consortiums for the licenses will be controlled,” he said.
He said the commission would issue licenses in the passive and active layers while price cap would be implemented in these layers using cost based pricing. Juwah added that multiple licenses would also be issued in the retail layer with pricing to end users determined by market forces.
For broadband implementation, Juwah said the Commission has already concluded preliminary studies that would enable cost effective deployment. In this process, we have developed a model for the deployment and have engaged reputable internationally acclaimed consultants to drive strategy and design the process for achieving our goals” he said.
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