The best is yet to come for telecoms – NCC

Mr. Tony Ojobo,
NCC Director Public Affairs

By Adebola Ojikutu

Since its inception, privatisation, deregulation and liberalisation in 1999, Nigeria’s telecom sector has made monumental progress and contributions to the nation’s economy. From a mere 1 percent and less than a million analogue lines as at 2001, there has evolved an escalation to about 170 million connected and 128 million active mobile and fixed telephone lines, bringing teledensity to about 91 percent of the total population.

The sector has attracted about $30 billion in foreign direct investment with an average 15 percent growth per annum in the last decade. It has created about ten thousand direct and an estimated two million indirect jobs while opening up various channels and windows of opportunity for small and medium scale entrepreneurs.

Still waiting for the telecoms bill

By Raymond Akubo

Chief Okechukwu Itanyi
Executive Commissioner,
Stakeholders Engagement

For the umpteenth time, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on the National Assembly to speedily bring to conclusion the bill that seeks to protect telecoms infrastructure as critical national assets.
The executive commissioner, Stakeholders Engagement in the commission, Chief Okechukwu Itanyi, made the call recently at NCC 2014 Legislator’s workshop with the theme:  ICT Infrastructure as Key Driver for Economic Development: What Role for the Legislature, held in Lagos.
Itanyi who represented the executive vice chairman of the commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, stated that the theme of the forum was apt as ICT has become the foundation for rapid economic development in the world and Nigeria could not afford to be left behind. He said the commission is concerned with the adequacy of telecom infrastructure to drive broadband penetration.