FG Tasked on Harsh Business Environ, Poor ICT Infrastructure

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) stakeholders in the country have expressed their displeasure over the poor state of ICT infrastructure, which they attributed as the reason for the high cost of delivering broadband services across the Nigeria.

Describing the situation as pathetic, the stakeholders said it had brought untold hardship to the operators and subscribers.

They therefore called on the federal government to expedite action in addressing the situation, which they said, was already impeding widespread broadband penetration. They insisted that unless government addresses the issue, it is not likely to attain its 30 per cent broadband penetration by 2018, as contained in the country’s National Broadband Plan (2013-2018).

The Chief Executive Officer of Spectranet 4GLTE, Mr. Ajay Awasthi, told THISDAY in Lagos that government must address the issue of high cost of delivering broadband services across the country, if it must achieve good broadband penetration. Awasthi, who blamed the high cost of doing business on faulty industry structure, said the situation would continue lower profitability on the part of the ISPs, and at the same time impede broadband penetration.

According to him, “Two-third of our cost in this market is fixed, and cost of doing business is on the increase. The cost structure of doing business keeps increasing and it is already very high. Government has to address this ugly situation urgently in order to encourage more players to grow in order. If this is achieved, it will boost profitability, and also facilitate faster broadband penetration in the country.”

On his part, Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, called on the Nigerian Communications Com- mission (NCC), the industry telecoms regulator, to create an enabling environment that will allow the already licenced Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) to rollout their services and as well facilitate the processes of licensing other InfraCos, as promised long ago by the NCC.

Two InfraCos, MainOne and IHS, had since 2015 been licensed to provide telecoms infrastructure for the telecoms industry, but they are yet to rollout their services.

While MainOne got the InfraCo Licence to deploy full scale metropolitan fibre-optic infrastructure and associated transmission equipment on an open access, non-discriminatory and price-regulated basis to cover Lagos zone, IHS was licensed to cover North-central, with plans to license additional five InfraCOs that will cover the remaining five geopolitical regions of the country, by July 2017.

According to Adebayo, government must act fast to remove the barriers impeding InfraCos rollout, which he said was also affecting telecoms expansion and broadband penetration.

Other stakeholders, who spoke to THISDAY, said the poor state of telecoms infrastructure in the country would continue to create harsh business environment, unless the government takes urgent steps to address it.