Nigeria ripe for broadband evolution - Juwah

DPA, Tony Ojobo, EVC, Dr. Juway and Head Media, Muoka

Nigeria from all intents and purposes is ripe for broadband evolution, says the chief executive officer, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah.

Speaking at an interactive session soon after the official opening of the 2012 West African Information and Communications Technology (WAFICT) Congress held in Lagos, Dr. Juwah noted that by conquering voice telephony, it’s time now to move on to broadband revolution.

He also said at the event with theme: Bridging West Africa Divide Through Broadband, that given the fact that the world has taken voice telephony as basic, while moving fast into the new world of data transmission, which defines the speed with which businesses are conducted in the cyberspace via the internet.

He described broadband as the speed at which the Internet highways transmit data from one end of the world to another, noting that with the current active lines in excess of 90 million against about 400,000 some 10 years ago, hence the growth of the past decade has been variously described as a revolution.

According to him by the International Telecommunications standards, Nigeria’s telecom growth is a huge performance at the 64.98 per cent teledensity compared with some 0.44 per cent in 2001.

“This is why Nigeria is adjudged one of the fastest growing telecommunications nations of the world and indeed, the fastest in Africa,” he said.

The economic impact of broadband penetration, he said, has been found to be quite impressive, stressing that recent World Bank studies have shown that in low and middle income countries, every 10 per cent point increases broadband penetration, which accelerate economic growth by 1.38 percentage points.

“This impact is greater than in high-income countries and equally greater than the impact of any other telecommunications service,” he said.

Juwah pointed out that alternatively, doubling the broadband speed for the economy would increase its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 0.3 per cent points.

The aforementioned percentage points, he said, could appear small, but if applied to the Nigerian GDP at 40 trillion Naira, one could see an increase of over half a trillion Naira in the first instance and N120 billion the second.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

MainOne Cable upgrades infrastructure to meet growing demands

Main One Cable Company has upgraded its network infrastructure to meet the growing bandwidth demands.

The upgrade is for the lit capacity on its undersea fibre optic cable system with an additional 20 Gigabit Per Second (Gbps) between Lagos, Nigeria and Seixal Portugal, with deployment of an additional bank of 10 Gbps wavelengths ready for implementation on demand.

A press statement endorsed by Ms Jumoke Akande of Main One Cable Company and Courtney McDaniel of TE SubCom and made available to ITRealms Online, indicated that the upgrade was necessary to meet the growing demand for bandwidth on the Main One network.

This upgrade, they said, is the third capacity advancement of the network since Main One’s launch in June 2010.

According to them, with this upgrade, Main One is positioned as the undersea cable system carrier with the highest lit capacity in West Africa, with over 12 times the capacity of the incumbent operator and higher than other existing and planned operators.

The chief executive officer, MainOne, Ms Funke Opeke,  was quoted as saying they are growing the lit capacity on the network to accommodate the ever growing demand for the region’s Internet and international plus cross border transport capacity services.

“This reinforces our position as the leading provider of wholesale Internet and transmission services to meet the expectations of our customers,” she said.

The capacity upgrade, she noted was seamlessly executed by Main One’s Network Planning and Implementation team in conjunction with TE SubCom, Main One’s submarine cable system supplier and Business Unusual Limited, Infrastructure Project Managers.

The Vice President, Sales for TE SubCom, Mr. Michael Rieger, said they were  honored to have originally constructed Main One's world class network and to be a part of its continuing expansion.

“Main One's substantial increase in demand demonstrates their continued customer growth and we are pleased they have chosen us as supplier of this important upgrade,” he said.

ITRealms Online recollects that Main One is wholly African and is the first privately owned submarine network cable in West Africa with initial landing stations in Nigeria, Ghana and Portugal and seeks to deliver its cable system on time and within budget.

Remmy Nweke
ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D

Teledom unveils Smart Classroom Technology

As the three-day West Africa Congress on Information and Communications Technology (WAFICT-2012) opens in Lagos, Teledom International Limited unveils its latest in stock Smart Classroom Technology.

The Group Chief Executive Officer, TeledomGroup, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem affirmed this in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online, saying it would give a boost to the educational sector in the country.

He says smart classroom technology affords the teacher to think smart, teach smart, create smart and innovate smart.

He also said that students are bound to learn in a smart way, exciting and great fun wherever this smart classroom in installed.

He explained that the systems involves the networking of students’ desktop or laptop systems in the class to the touch-screen sympodium which transfers whatever the teacher writes to an interactive whiteboard in front of the class.

“What the teacher writes is recorded centrally in the sympodium server as well as in each of the students’ desktop or laptop computers,” he enlightened.

Ekuwem noted that in the recent past, the education sector in Nigeria has been experiencing decline in standards, stressing that teachers have complained about the lack of basic infrastructure and conducive or enabling environment for effective teaching amongst other challenges.

He pointed out that experts have noted that an average Nigerian child, if exposed to the type of learning environment his counterparts in developed countries have access to, would definitely perform better than what obtains today.

“Apart from the incessant breaks in the school system due to industrial disputes between teachers and the government, the classrooms in an average Nigerian school lack modern equipment and teaching aids to make learning a pleasure and excitement,” he decried.

Ekuwem further said that with the introduction of the smart classroom, a large part of the challenges has been dealt with.

“With the smart classroom system, the teacher fully engages the students’ attention as the multi-media equipment bombards the students’ senses for higher stimulation” he said.

Ekuwem emphasised that this Smart Classroom technology allows the teacher to produce and modify resources quickly and easily, thereby permitting real time access to internet-based information and resources as well as allowing access to a wide range of information in different formats.

The technology enables easy revision through recorded lectures for date-and-time-specific playback on laptops, Personal Computers (PCs), and Digital Video Disc (DVD) players.

“With the recorded class sessions for future playback, complacency on the part of teachers is eradicated, resulting in reasonable improvements in the method of teaching and quality of what is taught,” he suggested.

According to him, apart from the automation of the learning process which smart classroom brings makes the model teacher to keep teaching forever as the recorded materials could be relied upon even in the absence of the teacher.

Remmy Nweke

ITREALMS Online ... delivering news for ICT4D