Dr. Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has said that the much required broadband infrastructure in the country would advance the course of the federal government in actualising its aim in making Nigeria one of the top 20 economies in the year 2020.
Juwah, who was represented by  Engineer Augustine Nwaulume, deputy director and head of spectrum management at NCC, made this known in his key note address at the recent Broadband Summit, co-organised by BusinessWorld Newspaper and the Association of Telecom Companies of Nigeria (Atcon) in Lagos, where he said the event was timely as broadband is crucial to national development and applicable in the area of telemedicine, e-learning, security, e-commerce, e-banking, telecommunications among others.
He stated that trend in broadband is fast changing and there is need to keep with pace which has taken an advanced stage in developed economies. According to him, as the global population continues to increase, there is the need for telecommunication access to meet with the speed in order to march the Nigerian economy towards realisation of the Vision 20, 2020 agenda. “We should, as a nation, take advantage of the broadband revolution sweeping the continent, and to meet with the pace of development in other parts of the world, to drive resultant effect in actualising a digital economy,” he said.
Juwah said there is need to increase internet penetration, review of the Communication Act, and the chart a clear policy direction for the development of broadband infrastructure providers that would aid the growth of the telecom industry.
He explained that in order to have true broadband services, there has to be a shift towards a structured proliferation of fibre infrastructure across the country with the adoption of the “Open Access Model” that will ensure an even platform for the service providers and enhance the achievement of the nation’s “e-economy” goals.
Juwah affirmed that the commission believes that the Open Access model is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way of deploying a national broadband infrastructure, as it will extend broadband coverage to un-served and underserved areas, encourage use of ICT in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions and create value and enhance learning, knowledge transfer, governance, healthcare, security, commerce and employability of the workforce. The open access model is a framework for infrastructure sharing and the roles of the infrastructure and service providers are separated while services are provided on a fair and non-discriminatory basis.
“It will also foster the diversification of the economy and contribute substantially to GDP growth,” he said. “It is worthy to note that countries such as Sweden, Singapore, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates and South Africa among others have adopted the open access model or variant with successes,” he said.