Poor Spectrum Mgt Threatens National Broadband Target

Nigeria may fail to meet its broadband target due to lapses in the management of frequency spectrum, which has paved the way for under-utilisation of this scarce national resource.

The Federal Government, under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, had set the target of 80 per cent growth penetration in the 3G services by 2018, in line with the National Broadband Plan.

“But this target will remain unattainable because many high net worth individuals, agencies of government as well as telecommunications networks, without requisite capacity to roll out services, are sitting on huge amounts of frequency spectrum,” a top executive in one of the four major telecommunications companies, has said.

Recall that Bitflux Communications, a relatively inexperienced player in the market, was awarded the 2.3GHz frequency spectrum for the provision of wholesale wireless broadband services in February 2014. The telecoms company has yet to roll out broadband service across the country.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also stated that because of the poor management of frequency spectrum, Nigeria was bound to miss the June 2017 deadline set by the International Telecommunication Union for a global switchover of television signals from analogue to digital transmission.

Nigeria had earlier failed to meet the June 17, 2015 deadline, which was been extended to June 2017.

He said, “This is because the Federal Government has not released the N60bn to the National Broadcasting Commission, which was long earmarked as the cost of the digital Switchover process in the country. The migration is expected to free up requisite spectrum under the control of the NBC, providing the needed capacity for telecoms operators to roll out broadband services.

“Until MTN came forward, the NBC kept postponing the proposed auctioning of the 2.6GHz spectrum band, a situation that was frustrating the business plans of prospective investors seeking to play critical roles in the Nigeria’s broadband market.

 “Even at that, the NCC is now claiming that the spectrum was not part of 2.6GHz band it auctioned to MTN.”

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer/Managing Director at Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, said due to explosive growth in mobile data traffic, telecoms operators required more spectrums to support this growth.

“There is an urgent need to expedite the release of frequency to operators in order to facilitate industry development and enable the nation to meet its broadband targets,” he said.

A former Corporate Services Executive at MTN, Wale Goodluck, said, “Our industry is spectrum hungry. Spectrum is the oxygen of this business.”