*Dr. 鈥橞osun Tijani, Honourable Minister for Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, asserts the Federal Government has launched the National Broadband Alliance for Nigeria to help foster collaboration for Broadband development, adoption, and penetration towards positioning the West African country

Gbenga Kayode | 绿帽献妻

The Federal Government has launched the National Broadband Alliance for Nigeria (NBAN) to help foster collaboration for Broadband development and adoption in the West African country.

绿帽献妻 reports Dr. 鈥橞osun Tijani, Honourable Minister for Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, who stated this Thursday, August 15, 2024, noted that the digital project is activated to 鈥減osition Nigeria at the forefront of the global digital landscape.鈥�

Tijani said the hashtag#NBAN was also launched to support investment and tackle the challenge of low and non-consumption of data and its resultant poor Returns on Investment (RoI) in nationwide fibre network.

The Minister further stated the National Broadband Alliance for Nigeria would help 鈥渢o foster collaboration for Broadband development and adoption鈥�.鈥�

He said: 鈥淎s we work towards accelerating our collective prosperity as a nation, improving our connectivity infrastructure is a critical part of our plans as a government.

鈥淪o, as we improve the quality of supply of Broadband, we are also creating ways to increase demand.鈥�

On Nigeria’s Broadband penetration rate increase, by NCC

It is noted that Nigeria鈥檚 Broadband connections increased slightly by 1.0 percent month-on-month and 2.5 percent year-on-year to 94.4million as of April 2024, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

The telecoms sector regulatory Commision also disclosed the Broadband connections have maintained an upward trajectory since September 2023, except for a brief moderation January 2024.

The NCC stated that mobile Broadband accounts for a substantial portion (over 99 percent) of Nigeria鈥檚 Broadband connections because of the convenience and relatively low cost of acquiring mobile lines.

Consequently, the upward trend in broadband connections can be linked to the sustained growth in active mobile lines.

Due to the modest monthly rise in Broadband connections, the country’s Broadband penetration rate increased slightly to 43.5 percent March this year from 43.1 pecent the previous month.

In a move to further intensify Broadband adoption and penetration in the country, the Federal Government has continued to address the considerable significant Broadband penetration gap by implementing the National Broadband Plan (NBP 2020-2025).

The NBP 2020-2025 programme aims to achieve a broadband penetration target of 70% and population coverage of 90% by 2025.

Subsequently, to improve the relatively low Internet connectivity in the digital ecosystem, the Nigerian Goverment of late announced plans to expand the country’s existing infrastructure by 90,000km additional fibre optic cables.

The project, when completed, is expected to increase the country鈥檚 fibre optic cable from its current level of about 35,000 km to around 125,000 km, said Minister Tijani.

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