ENGINEER Ernest Ndukwe, executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has insisted on providing necessary access to the internet as a major factor in bridging the digital divide. Ndukwe made this known at the recent Nigeria Information Technology and Telecom Award (NITTA) 2009 in Lagos.
He said one of the main limitations confronting Africa is faster deployment of internet. “Access is fundamental and without it, there is no internet,” he said. “Internet is not real and cannot be experienced, used or valued by the individual who does not have access. Access for me means being connected to the internet at the right speed, at the right price, linked to the right content at the right time and the right place.” 
Ndukwe explained that many developing countries lost out on the telecom revolution that happened before the advent of mobile communications, when the rest of the world developed installed capacities for fixed line transmission and last-meter cable infrastructure.  He emphasized that it is the right time for the country to develop “Fibre Without Borders.” initiative which will ensure easy access to rights of way for cross border or cross country optic fibre cable infrastructure projects.
Ndukwe said Africa needs optic fibre highways crisscrossing the continent in order to  aggregate African data traffic, reduce cost of access, increase regional transit footprints, encourage regional peering, facilitate development of local content and enhance the contribution of Africa to the knowledge resource in the World Wide Web.
Ndukwe spoke on the incessant damage done to the South Atlantic undersea cable infrastructure (SAT-3) and its effect on voice and data traffic to and from the outside world. Commenting on security of infrastructure, he said a planned sabotage of unprotected critical communications infrastructure can have far reaching consequences on the business and social life of a country, and could grind certain critical activities to a halt.