The United Nations (UN) may have insisted on affordability
of broadband access to the citizens of the world before the end of the next
four years, that is, 2015, not exceeding 5 per cent of average monthly income.
This thought formed part of the outcome of the just
concluded fourth meeting of the Broadband Commission which endorsed new
broadband targets accompanied with global ‘Broadband Challenge’.
Although tagged ‘four ambitious but achievable’ new targets,
the Broadband Commission for Digital Development (BCDD) ended its meeting in
the city of Geneva, Switzerland, tasking countries globally to make every
effort to meet up with target of ensuring their populations fully participate
in tomorrow’s emerging knowledge societies anchored on broadband.
The new targets, BCDD noted would focus on broadband policy,
affordability and uptake while cutting across the processes of making broadband
policy universal.
“By 2015, all countries should have a national broadband
plan or strategy or include broadband in their universal access cum service
definitions,” part of the recommendation read. The head, Communications and
Partnership Promotion, Mr. Paul Conneally and Chief, Media Relations and Public
Information, Ms. Sarah Parkes both of the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU), informed that BCDD urged countries to make broadband affordable by 2015.
The Commission maintained that entry-level broadband
services should be made affordable in developing countries through adequate
regulation and market forces, which must be less than 5 per cent of average
monthly income.
Also, Broadband Commission listed connecting homes to
broadband by 2015, which entails that 40 per cent of households in developing
countries should have Internet access. Equally, the Commission predicted that
by getting people online before December 31, 2015, Internet user penetration
should reach 60 per cent worldwide, and 50 per cent in developing countries and
15 per cent in Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
ITU Secretary-General, Dr Hamadoun Touré, who serves as
co-Vice Chair of the Commission alongside UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova,
was quoted as saying that these targets are ambitious but achievable, given the
political will and commitment on the part of governments, working in
partnership with the private sector.
ITRealms Online recalls that the Commission is co-chaired by
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Carlos Slim Helú, Chairman and CEO of
Telmex and América MovÃl. Further, Toure assured that ITU will undertake
responsibility for measuring each country’s progress towards the targets,
producing an annual broadband report with rankings of nations worldwide in
terms of broadband policy, affordability and uptake.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said
it’s preparing grounds for a solid broadband plans for the country, insisting
that Africa needs a unified broadband strategy.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Eugene
Juwah made this revelation at the recently ended West African ICT Congress in
Lagos, where he was represented by the Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Tony
Ojobo.
The Commission, he said, has commenced preliminary studies
and appraisals that would usher NCC on solid ground for full implementation of
a broadband marshal plan for Nigeria.
“What we would stress today is the desire for the industry,
especially the policy makers, investors, service providers, vendors and policy
makers to begin to examine how these would affect the future of our
telecommunications environment, and prepare themselves for the roles they will
need to play for us to realize a collective success,” he said.
The success being envisaged by NCC in the sector, he said,
is not such that only one institution would be expected to deliver.
“When we put broadband in the perspective of cross border
implementation, it calls for harmonization of policies across the states or
nations involved at regional or continental levels,” he said.
Therefore, he said, Africa and Nigeria need to evolve a
uniform inter-regional policy framework such that when broadband is fully
implemented in any of the nations, the benefits could easily spread to sister
nations in the continent.
“A careful appraisal of the growth of broadband in developed
countries can be traced to a semblance of policies accentuated by uniform level
of development in terms of telecommunications and ICT infrastructures,” he
noted.
Lamenting that the same could not be said of Africa where
huge telephone traffic are not exchanged between neighbouring countries on the
continent, when compared with the traffic that such countries exchange with
countries in Europe, America, Asia and the Middle east countries.
“Most African countries are yet to be directly
interconnected, which is the reason why it costs higher to make calls across
the continent than it is to make calls to and from outside the continent,” he
said, stressing that as Africans must collectively pursue a deliberate policy
of liberalization that will attract service providers to go beyond their
immediate environments and also allow interconnection within and among African
countries.
Nigeria, he cited as an instance, has witnessed impressive
investments in the area of submarine optics fibre cable along the coastlines,
yet, there are about four major cables currently.
Ordinarily, Juwah pointed out that if Nigeria taps into the
full potentials of these cables, with its direct connection to the
international super-highway, the country would have achieved a lot in broadband
penetration.
Decrying the fact that these cables have only reached the
coastlines, while majority of the geographical land mass are yet to be connected
because they are mostly landlocked, Juwah urged investors to take advantage of
this by going extra mile to ensure that the rest of the countries’ are
connected.
“It could be that such investors may need to be
incentivized, but in what ways? This is where we hope the experts and
stakeholders would come up with the appropriate recommendations that will guide
regulatory actions and policies,” he said.
Juwah emphasized that service providers in Africa appear to
have backed down from an earlier pursuit of deploying to as many African
countries as possible.
Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D
