Providers List Barriers, Conditions for Broadband

Impeded by many roadblocks, Nigeria’s so-called broadband revolution has had its back broken as operators licensed to provide the critical infrastructure have threatened to halt further investments if the barriers are not removed, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.
From multiple taxes to right of way and to harassment, the operators reeled lengthy list of impediments to their road to making broadband ubiquitous and affordable.
Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (Alton), the umbrella body of operators in the telecom space, said that granting multiple operational licenses to operators to provide metro and national fibre infrastructure does not guarantee investment in that regard but implementation of  well articulated policies that will encourage operators to invest their money.
Adebayo said Government must go beyond granting of licenses to eliminating those barriers and ensuring security of their investments.
The Alton boss explained that broadband services are anchored on availability of bandwidth, and that with excess capacity of it at Nigeria’s shore, investment needed to be encouraged to distribute this capacity to various geographical areas of the country for broadband revolution to be experienced as is the case with voice service.
He added that licensed operators are yet to invest in provision of infrastructure because of clumsy process of securing ‘right of way’ from various government agencies.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that ‘right of way’ is a legal instrument allowing operators to deploy infrastructure on federal or state roads with a fee.
With the multiplication of this legal instrument by various local government area authorities’ operators find it difficult to deploy services.
With this comes non-availability of fibre backhaul infrastructure required to distribute bandwidth from Lagos where the submarine cable landed to other parts of the country resulting in high cost of bandwidth and poor quality.
Mohammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, said that availability of distributive channels of internet and making it accessible to ISPs is essential for the country to witness a broadband revolution.
“Without moving internet capacity from Lagos to other parts of the country, we may witness a lopsided broadband revolution, only in Lagos and its environs,” he said.