Danbatta told the conference on National Broadband Plan organised by the
Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday
that the NCC had started working with the National Broadcasting Commission
on the utilisation of TV White Space to further deepen the nation’s broadband
penetration.
The TV White Space, which is being championed by Microsoft and Google refers
to unused broadcasting frequencies in the wireless spectrum.
According to local media reports, television networks leave gaps between channels for
buffering purposes and this space in the wireless spectrum is similar to what is
used for 4G and so it can be used to deliver widespread broadband Internet.
“The implementation of the commission’s road map has so far resulted in the
attainment of 30.9 percent broadband penetration as of November 2018.
“What this connotes is that a total of 58,965,478 were connected to the broadband
networks out of 108,457,051 Internet subscribers on the nation’s telecoms networks.
“The figures rose in December to 60,087,199 taking the penetration to 31.48
Percent,” Danbatta said.
Danbatta noted that although broadband penetration had tremendously increased
in the last five years, most of the country’s rural communities had yet to witness
broadband coverage as the dominant technology in such areas remained 2G
networks.