Bako Wakil, NCC Head of Technical Standards and Network Integrity, made this known this
during a panel session on ”Enhancing Broadband Infrastructure Access In Nigeria: Initiatives,
Development and Challenges”, at the ongoing 2019 Social Media Week (SMW) in Lagos.
The SMW Lagos is Africa’s largest technology and media gathering and will run from
February 4 to February 8, 2019.
The theme for SMW Lagos 2019 is ”Stories: With Great Influence Comes Great Responsibility”.
Nigeria’s National Broadband Plan, when it was set in 2013, put the minimum speed as
1.5 megabits per second.
The plan ended at the end of 2018 and a new plan has been worked out and most likely
the speed will be raised.
”As at today, depending on the availability of infrastructure, there are countries that are
talking about 10 megabits per second, even 20 megabits per second.
”So we are going to grow in that pace, so certainly the new broadband plan will look at
something higher than what we have now.
”This is because what we are talking about is Internet of Things (IoT), we are talking about
Artificial Intelligence (AI), we are talking about things like driverless cars, devices being
connected and talking to each other, hence, you need very high speed in order to achieve
those things,” Wakil said.
He said that there was the need for a very huge data capacity that would enable not only
people to communicate, but also household devices and equipment talking to themselves.
According to him, the country needs to put together both fixed and mobile broadband
strategy.
He said that the commission had identified strategic and necessary spectrum, in order to
roll out broadband services.
Wakil said that broadband played an important part in the socio-economic life of people.