The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment towards providing adequate broadband penetration in the country.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, said the target is to have a minimum of 70% broadband penetration by 2025.
Pantami said this when the Executive Chairman of Phase 3 Telecoms Limited, Mr Stanley Jegede and his delegation paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.
Speaking further, the minister said that the country relied so much on broadband penetration, which is why adequate broadband penetration is needed in line with what the Digital Economy Policy and Strategy for digital Nigeria aim to achieve.
“Whatever we do, we rely so much on broadband penetration. That is why any effort to complement what we have been doing to ensure it is highly commendable,” he said.
Pantami said that one of the major responsibilities of the government is to provide an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.
“The main responsibility of government is to ensure that the environment is favourable and conducive and if there are any challenges, the government will intervene. This is what we will continue to do and I assure you within the time I am going to spend here, I will give 100% to ensure that all the challenges we encounter are addressed,” Pantami said as reported by Punch.
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He added that the government was waiting for the report of the National Broadband Plan Committee 2020-2025 as it is important to bridge the gap because broadband penetration was directly proportional to the Gross Domestic Product of a country.
Why this matters: Broadband service provides a higher-speed of data transmission, which gives access to the highest quality internet services that in turn contributes to economic growth. This is because when there is fast broadband growth, business processes are more efficient, new consumer applications and services are innovated and general improvement of the deployment of business services.