The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the National Policy on Fifth Generation (5G) Networks for Nigeria’s digital economy.
The 5G Policy approval was sequel to the presentation by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, at the meeting.
The FEC also directed that the implementation of the National Policy should take immediate effect.
It would be recalled that the National Policy had been developed over a 2-year period during which the government and the relevant agencies embarked on extensive stakeholder engagement and public public awareness and sensitization about its proposals.
The engagements also took into account the report of the 3-month 5G trials that commenced on the 25th of November 2019 and also critically reviewed and studied the health and security implications of deploying 5G in Nigeria.
Research findings on the health and environmental implications of the 5G technology deployment by leading international organizations, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), indicated that the deployment of 5G networks has no adverse health effect and are safe.
Some of the 5G technology advantages over the current lower capacity networks include much lower latency, higher bandwidth, greater device density, longer battery life for nodes and greater network flexibility.
Already, some countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Republic of Korea, South Africa and Lesotho have already commenced the deployment of 5G and are enjoying its benefits.
Based on the policy guidelines, the National Frequency Management Council (NFMC), chaired by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami, will soon release spectrum to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) that meet all the requirements for the 5G technology deployment
It is also expected that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) will continue to engage stakeholders for the purposes of developing the regulatory instruments required for the successful deployment of the technology in Nigeria.
