Telecom
FG Out with New 5-Year National Broadband Plan
The need to boost broadband penetration from its present coverage of 37.8% to over 70% in the next five years is the pedestal for the new National Broadband Plan NBP (2020-2025) according to Dr Isa Ali Pantami, minister of Communications and Digital Economy.
Henry Nkemadu, director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said in a statement that besides this, the Minister said, pervasive broadband penetration will certainly make Nigeria a truly digital economy. He spoke yesterday at the inauguration of a 25 member committee in Abuja.
The new NBP 2020 -2025 is sequel to the first NBP 2013 – 2018. The new NBP Committee has Ms. FunkeOpeke, Managing Director/CEO of Main One Cable Company Limited, as Chairperson with Dr. Bashir Gwandu as Co-Chairman. Engr.Ubale Maska, the Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Nigerian Communications Commissions as the Secretary to the Committee, he will be supported by four staff of the Ministry in the secretariat.
He said that the Committee is to develop a new National Broadband Plan that will be the guiding template for the development of this very important area of telecommunications.
The Committee is to take a critical look at where we are after painstaking review of the 2013-2018 phase and the status of penetration now. The members are enjoined to also examine the challenges with a view to proffering solutions thereto. They should also look at the position of growing and emerging technologies among others.
The new NBP has the collaboration and support of the United Kingdom (UK) Government.
The inauguration of this new Committee is a follow up to the launch of the National Policy for Digital Economy and Strategy by President MuhammaduBuhari, in November 2019.
The Policy has eight pillars among which are Developmental Regulation, Digital Literacy and Skills, Solid Infrastructure, Service Infrastructure, Digital Services Development and Production, Digital Society Emerging Technologies and Indigenous Content Development.
The Minister told the Committee members to lay emphasis on the third pillar of the National Policy which accommodates broadband and data centre, key components for economic growth, and promotion of digital economy.
The Committee’s work, he explained will address significantly one of the eight pillars and the remaining seven will also run as one of this all important pillar.
“The work of this Committee will go a very long way in supporting the national digital economic policy and strategy for the Federal Government because digital economy is strategically dominating the world economy today.”
According to Pantami, members of the Committee were selected based on their competence, integrity and professionalism. “In all these, Nigeria comes first.”
Ms. Opeke who responded on behalf of the committee thanked the Minister for the opportunity to serve and said the target of the committee is to achieve at least 65-70% broadband penetration across Nigeria in the next five years, adding that the objective is technology neutrality for the right purpose. “ the Minister has set the goal and I am sure the NCC is in agreement,” Ms. Opeke added, saying “ we will look at the work of the last Committee and what was done, the prospects, the challenges that are still there in order to come up with a plan to achieve the set objectives.”
‘‘I believe the objective is achievable with sincerity of purpose and with hard work for these are critical services and infrastructure that we need to bring to all Nigerians and we’re optimistic that we can accomplish that goal. There is work to be done on fixed infrastructure but the reality is mobile technologies are also progressing quite fast to deliver very capable services to people. ‘‘We see what is going on with 5G all over the world, so we will address both at the Committee but 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. So, we’ll be a mix of technologies but the objective is not to favour one technology over another or to be prescriptive but the right technology for the right purpose, the most competitive technology that enables us deliver services to all Nigerians,’’ Opeke said.
Earlier in his goodwill message, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman of NCC, said Broadband Infrastructure remains one of the top priority of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to ensure people around the world have access to equitable and affordable broadband, wherever they are and whatever the circumstances they are in. With adequate broadband infrastructure in place, Danbatta assured that everything else will fall into place. ‘‘The ability to deliver healthcare, best quality education even to generations unborn, ability to streamline transportation, meet up with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the ability to transform the economy into a digital one.’’ He pledged the commitment of the Board and Management of NCC, especially in the area of driving the infrastructure that will ensure that critical mass of ICT adoption in use will in time increase the level of broadband penetration in the country.
Besides, Ms. Opeke, Gwandu and Maska, the 25-member Committee also has representatives from the academia, NCC, Galaxy Backbone, MTN , Google, NiRA, Defence Space Administration, National Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Nigerian Communications Satellite Ltd (NIGCOMSAT), Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), GSM Association among others.
Airtel Nigeria has reaffirmed its long-term commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s digital infrastructure and data access to bridge gaps in connectivity and unlock new opportunities in the country.
The company restated this commitment during a recent high-level inspection tour of the Nxtra Data Centre that is being developed through Nxtra by Airtel Africa at Eko Atlantic, Lagos, the highly rated smart city with ambition to become the Data Centre hub of Nigeria.
The inspection tour was led by the Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh and the Chief Executive Officer of Nxtra by Airtel Africa, Yashnath Issur, with the esteemed chairman of Eko Atlantic Mr. Gabbi Massoud, the CEO of the lead Engineering firm Design Group Limited, Mr. Bayo Odunlami and tech journalists.
The Nxtra Data Centre went through a stringent design validation process and cleared the approval to proceed construction from Eko Atlantic.
Commenting on the developments, Mr Issur said the site visit was a milestone marker and an indication of the company’s commitment to delivering the world-class digital facility on time and ensure that, ultimately, the investments deliver reliable, secure, world-class services for Nigeria and the rest of the continent.
“This Nxtra Data Centre in Lagos represents a critical part of our long-term vision for Nigeria’s digital ecosystem. Today’s visit allows us to review progress, engage our stakeholders, and ensure that our infrastructure investments continue to meet global standards and local needs.
“This data centre will deliver critical high multi megawatt capacity in line with hyperscale customers and enable high density environment. We are putting the infra to bring the cloud to Nigeria,” he said.
The data centre, set to be the largest in Nigeria, is being established to deliver hyperscale and edge facilities across key African markets. With a load of 38 Megawatts, the Lagos facility is expected to serve as a major hub for data hosting, cloud services, content distribution, artificial intelligence, and enterprise solutions in West Africa.
In his remarks, Mr Balsingh reiterated that the data centre was progressing steadily towards the previously announced 2028 go live date.
“Since the announcement of this project, our focus has been on building a world-class facility that supports Africa’s digital transformation agenda. We are encouraged by the progress recorded so far and remain committed to delivering a secure, energy-efficient, and future-ready data centre for Nigeria,” he said.
During the tour, stakeholders were ushered through key sections of the site, including piling zones, where required structural requirements have been tested. Technical teams provided briefings on infrastructure design, security architecture, redundancy systems, and sustainability measures being implemented to ensure reliability and operational excellence.
Strategically located close to major fibre routes and undersea cable landing stations, the Eko Atlantic data centre is designed to enhance Nigeria’s data sovereignty, reduce latency, and improve access to reliable digital services for private and enterprise customers, significantly boosting the country’s data hosting capacity and supporting emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Mr. Massoud noted that the inspection tour underscored the city’s dedication to infrastructure of global relevance.
“Eko Atlantic as a city with high quality infrastructure will contribute positively to boost the economy of Nigeria and is a perfect place for the development of the digital infrastructure of Nigeria. The Nxtra data centre reflects the calibre of projects we seek to attract — long-term, technology-driven investments built to the highest global standards.
Today’s visit affirms the rigour of the planning and execution process by Nxtra, and the commitment of Eko Atlantic to facilitate and promote the Nigeria’s evolving digital ecosystem,” he said.
Through this ongoing investment, Airtel Nigeria and Nxtra continue to demonstrate their commitment to building infrastructure that enables innovation, supports economic development, and accelerates Nigeria’s digital transformation.
Nxtra by Airtel is developing a network of hyperscale data centres across the continent. Besides Lagos, construction of a new data centre has also commenced in Nairobi, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Google has partnered with top African research institutions to unveil WAXAL, a massive open-access speech dataset aimed at giving over 100 million people across Sub-Saharan Africa a stronger voice in the AI future.
The initiative, announced Monday, targets a key digital gap by supplying high-quality data for 21 local languages, such as Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, and Acholi. It includes 1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech and more than 20 hours of studio-grade recordings for advanced synthetic voice tech.
Voice AI has exploded globally, yet Africa’s 2,000-plus languages suffer from severe data shortages, sidelining hundreds of millions from native-tongue tech access. WAXAL, three years in the making with Google funding, changes that equation.
“This dataset lays the groundwork for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to craft tech in their own languages, impacting over 100 million lives,” said Aisha Walcott-Bryantt, Head of Google Research Africa.
She highlighted its potential for African innovators to develop educational tools and voice services that spark economic growth continent-wide.
Community-led from the start, the project involved Makerere University (Uganda), University of Ghana, Digital Umuganda (Rwanda), and others. These partners own the data outright, pioneering fair AI collaboration models.
Covered languages: Acholi, Akan, Dagaare, Dagbani, Dholuo, Ewe, Fante, Fulani (Fula), Hausa, Igbo, Ikposo (Kposo), Kikuyu, Lingala, Luganda, Malagasy, Masaaba, Nyankole, Rukiga, Shona, Soga (Lusoga), Swahili, Yoruba.
WAXAL goes live today. Details at goo.gle/IntroducingWaxal.
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has unveiled its Q4 2025 Network Performance Reports, showcasing nationwide quality boosts fueled by over $1 billion in industry investments and sharper regulatory focus.
NCC
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman, NCC, hailed the Ookla-backed data as proof of NCC’s drive for transparent, evidence-driven oversight of Nigeria’s digital growth.
The reports track real-user experiences across cities, villages, highways, and nascent 5G areas, revealing faster median download speeds in both urban and rural spots versus Q3 2025.
Video streaming quality gaps between city and countryside have shrunk, thanks to a beefed-up 4G network—yet 5G rollout lags, upload speeds falter, and coverage holes linger in spots.
Maida said NCC is leaning on operators to fix these via spectrum tweaks, infrastructure drives, and stricter service rules, with 2025’s 2,850 new sites already paying off in broader reach and capacity.
Operators pledge even bigger spends in 2026 to keep the momentum, aiming for top-tier connectivity and economic inclusion for all Nigerians.
“We’ll turn these insights into real gains in service and access,” Maida affirmed, calling for sustained industry teamwork.
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