The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has embarked on a system upgrade, in order to enhance the quality of its services to more than 40 million Nigerians who are denied access to telecommunication services in rural areas.
This new decision, according to Prof Umar Garba Dambatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission is a renewed solution to remedy the challenges faced in the telecommunication industry. Dambatta proposed a two-way solution to the challenges.
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Short-term and long-term plans
- The short-term plan involves collaboration with ICT firms to drive rural-led solutions.
- The long-term plan involves the construction of base transceiver stations that will accommodate 190 million Nigerians.
Dambatta noted that resulting to the use of 10 base transceiver stations per year would still not be enough for the country to bridge the communication gap, noting that the project would take the Commission up to 20 years.
“NCC is driving the local content, using the ICT Ecosystem with the resources available such as the infrastructure, technology facilities, human intelligence to improve the economy. If those infrastructures are available, they can now be used to drive wealth for the 40 million Nigerians who are not benefitting from such services.”
What Mobile Operators must do more: Dambatta stressed that Mobile Network Operators must now push forward on course to develop stronger voice services that will rival the data packages they regularly churn out. He also asked for more value-added solutions that will increase revenue streams and produce more value.
“It has, therefore, become necessary to innovate on how to access segments of the Consumer wallets not presently allocated to communication by providing solutions to Consumer needs in other vertical areas of education, health, government services made available through telecoms network infrastructure.”
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On its part, the NCC has promised to make it favourable for tech hubs and start-ups to thrive and achieve all set goals.
