FG issues new Right-of-Way guidelines

Mrs. Johnson

The Federal Government has issued new Right of Way (RoW) guidelines to regulate the modalities of laying fibre cables on federal highways across the country.

This development came as the Federal Government has set up a joint minister 8-man committee to strengthen its position and determination in ensuring the issue of RoW is nipped in the bud.

Special Adviser on Media to the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Efem Nkanga in disclosed this to ITRealms Online at the weekend, saying that the joint 8-man committee was inaugurated by the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson and her counterpart in the ministry of works, Mr. Mike Onolememen in Abuja last Friday.

She noted that current submitted new right of way (RoW) guidelines to direct laying of fibre cables on federal highways nationwide.

According to her, in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online, one of the steps of achieving this goal will be to eradicate poor quality of service in the telecoms industry.

The committee, she said, made up of four members each from both ministries submitted the report to the two ministers at the Ministry of Works on Friday.

She explained that new RoW guidelines to be adopted soon, pegs the chargeable RoW access fee for laying of ICTSP ducts and cables at N145.0/linear metre and N20.0/linear metre as annual maintenance access fee, subject to periodic reviews at five-year intervals or whenever compelling circumstances demand such reviews.

The new guidelines, she said, also stipulates that henceforth applications for granting of RoWs will be treated and concluded within 30 calender days.

“The new guidelines mandate infrastructure sharing to reduce incidents of multiple digging up of roads which compromise the integrity of the roads,” she said, warning, however that any contravention of the guidelines will lead to suspension of RoW, revocation of RoW and a fine of a million naira a day.   

The Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs Omobola Johnson was quoted as saying that the collaboration and partnership between the two ministries is a demonstration of how President Jonathan’s cabinet is working to deliver on the President’s transformation agenda.

She said that the report marks a very important milestone in the quest to improve quality of service delivery in the telecoms industry and will ultimately lead to a reduction in the cost of providing infrastructure in the country.

Mrs. Johnson stressed that the implementation of the RoW guidelines at the federal level will lead to improved service quality and broadband penetration in the country because fibre is a key transmission element for broadband.

She assured that the two ministries would continue to collaborate to deliver on the Federal Government’s transformation agenda and pointed out that the need for the guidelines to be adopted at the state level in order to ensure fibre deployment nationwide.

To underscore how low fibre deployment is in Nigeria, she said that the United Kingdom (UK) that is, one quarter the size of Nigeria has 60 times more fibre than Nigeria.

She said that the communication technology ministry will continue to partner with the ministry of works to foster a holistic way of laying fibre across the country for the benefit of the industry. 

“It’s a new era and a new time in that we will begin to build the critical infrastructure that we need in the country” she said.    

Equally in his remarks, the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen said that the issuance of new RoW guidelines is one of the firsts of the collaborative hallmark of the Jonathan’s administration.

He said that the Ministries are synergising to deliver Nigeria to greater heights, emphasising the need for the collaboration amongst the two ministries and the setting up of the Committee rose as a result of the need to coordinate the provision of infrastructure to Nigerians because of the plethora of companies bastardising RoWs without requisite benefits to the country.

The minister said that once Mrs Johnson broached the subject to his ministry, he immediately bought into it and the outcome is the issuance of new RoW guidelines that will facilitate effective service delivery in the telecoms sector.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Cyber threats: Nigeria ranks 59th - Symantec

Roundtable: Symantec Channel Manager, Nigeria & Ghana, Adeyemi Adeleke

and Symantec Territory Manager, IWECA (Indian Islands, West, East and 

Central Africa),  Sheldon Hand during the Company's Media Roundtable at 

Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Ikeja, Lagos Thursday.

Leading cyber security solution company, Symantec has ranked Nigeria 59^th on its latest ranking from 66 position recorded at the same period last year.

Disclosing this in an exclusive interview with ITRealms Online during his working visit to Nigeria last week, the Territory Manager, Symantec Pty Limited in-charge of Indian Ocean Islands, West, East and Central Africa (IWECA), Mr. Sheldon Hand, said in Lagos that with this ranking, Nigeria’s position has actually increased in the cyber threat sphere.

He explained that the way the ranking work is that if a country is ranked first, it means it’s the most country with security threats.

He also adduced some reasons for the Nigeria’s position, listing the booming economy, advent of more bandwidth routes and explosion in mobile devices.

For him, Internet security threats have actually tripled due to avalanche of technologies, especially mobile devices.

According to him, Symantec recently, released a report which is an analysis of all the threats on the internet, based on its deployment systems to scan over 8 billion electronic mails (emails) per day.

“We have more than 240,000 censors in 200 countries. These censors are networks in strategic places, and what this allows us to do is gather a tremendous amount of information and intelligence about the threats that are happening in the world on the internet,” he said.

Mr. Hand also affirmed that Symantec has specific statistics for Nigeria, which shows that in 2011 Nigeria was ranked the 66^th, which means that is the 66^th highest country with internet threats, but this has increased.

He explained that this does not meant that security threat ranking of Nigeria has gone down.

“No, If you ranks number 1, it means you have the most security internet threat, so Nigeria has gone from 66 to 59 which means security threats have increased,” Mr. Hand said.

As said by him, the reason for the aforementioned ranking based on Symantec perception are in three-fold, namely, the first one “is Nigeria’s economy is booming, it is estimated that about 2015 Nigeria’s economy will be bigger than South Africa’s economy, this is estimated by Morgan Stanley Research.”

He pointed out that over a couple of years, there have been an increase in the broadband capacity in Nigeria.

“So, the internet with broadband is a platform for malicious activities for security threats in one of two ways,” he said.

Lastly, he said, there is an increased security threat in Nigeria because of the adoption of mobile devices which has increased significantly as there is a lot of people using android, iphone, blackberry, tablets and many others.

 Remmy Nweke

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

GOTv hits Lagos airwave with DVB-T2 technology

Plans have been advanced for the official launch of the GOtv, a pay television service on the latest Digital Video Broadcast (DVB-T2) technology as the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) service on Saturday, June 16, 2012 in Lagos, the commercial nerves centre of the nation.

Confirming this, the General Manager at GOtv Nigeria, Mr. Mayo Okunola, says the new pay-TV service provides is a low cost product that utilizes the latest DVB-T2 standard technology which leapfrogs the outdated T1 system that is still being utilized by some pay television operators to launch digital services -thus providing Nigerians with only the latest and best digital technology available worldwide.

GOtv provides television lovers with a dramatic improvement on picture and sound quality and an exciting channel line-up. It offers subscribers the most advanced technology and broadcast system in Africa and the rest of the world to date, and currently the only digital television pay service on DVB-T2 technology in Nigeria.

Okunola explained that GOTv comes to town with two bouquets, namely great family entertainment channels and subscribers would be able to enjoy a wide selection of local and international channels; a total of 33 channels for GOtv plus and 22 channels for GOtv at an affordable price.

GOtv subscribers, Okunola says, would have access to news, children’s programming, documentaries, series and movies.

The channels, the general manager says, were carefully selected to cater for a variety of different tastes and cultures, adding that the line-up is designed to ensure that viewers enjoy improved pictures and sound quality that is synonymous with digital television.

Some of the channels that would be available to GOtv subscribers include AfricaMagic Movies, AfricaMagic World, AfricaMagic Yoruba, AfricaMagic Hausa, E! Entertainment, Discovery World, eTV Africa, Select Sports, Al Jazeera, CNN, Channel O, Disney Junior, Kidsco, Islamic Channels, One Gospel, Sound City , to name a few.

In the main time, Okunola says, GOtv has been launched in Ibadan and Port Harcourt and it will soon be launched in other cities in the country.

 

“The Pay-TV service does not require a satellite dish and there is no installation cost. All it requires is a GOtv decoder and a stub or grid antenna,” Okunola explained.

Remmy Nweke

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D