Dr. Eugene Juwah, Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said that the commission will license 2.5 and 2.6GHz spectrum bands before the end of the year. This he said is in addition to other retail services.
“We are also going to license more retail services and encourage the operators where possible to extend fibre to homes and businesses on their own. Government is committed to providing incentives to winners of infrastructure licenses,” Juwah said.
According to him, the commission is creating conducive environment for the private sector in the nation’s ICT sector.
He said: “We are creating enabling environment and incentives for the private sector to roll out broad band networks which will be a one off incentive for last mile to be achieved. We will replicate the success we made in voice in broadband plan as we proceed on the journey.
Even in the midst of several challenges in the sector, he said a lot has been achieved so far.
“Looking at the perspective of where we are today resulting from the liberalization and privatization of the sector in Nigeria. If we look at the voice services, we have achieved a teledensity of 86.6 per cent coverage as at September 2013 and we have active subscriber base that has reached 120.1 million.
“We have done quite well in the voice segment, but taking a look at the data segment, our internet penetration rate currently is 32.9 per cent, our broadband penetration rate is 6.1 per cent, taking it to a higher speed broadband, this 6.1 per cent will disappear” he said.
