The Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, has canvassed the need for fresh investments in the nation’s communications technology sub-sector to sustain growth and harness the sub-sectors’ potential for the nation’s industrial revolution.
Specifically, the industry regulator pointed out that such new investments in digital technologies would enable Nigeria to actively play in the increasingly dynamic global economic order and by implication, improve the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate.
Dambatta, who was represented by Felicia Onwuegbuchilam, Director, Consumer Affairs of the commission, gave these hints during his remarks on Wednesday at the 2018 Information Communications Technology and Telecommunication (ICTEL) Expo, organized by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) in Lagos.
The NCC boss puts the current investments in the telecoms sector at about $70 billion with the nation’s teledensity and active mobile connections standing at 116 per cent and over 162 million respectively, charging the LCCI and others in the private sector to join hands with the commission to drive digital inclusion.
Teledensity is the number of telephone connections for every hundred individuals living within an area. It varies widely across the nations and also between urban and rural areas within a country.
He explained further globally today, digitisation was triggering dynamics that are re-writing the rules of competition and efficiency such that corporate entities that failed to adapt to innovative changes will be seriously constrained to compete in their market segments of the emerging economic order.
Specifically, Dambatta identified, trends such as automation of processes by public and private organizations, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, e-Commerce and block chain technology, Cloud computing, as among many changes that now characterize the current digital age, noting that “the utmost aim of these digital tools is to redefine how services are delivered to the consumer.”
For Nigeria to respond to the dynamics of digital-tool driven economic order, the NCC boss identified new investments in broadband capacity and Internet connection technologies as desirable imperative.
He clarified: “The country has an auspicious target to achieve 30 per cent broadband penetration by year end, which is in line with the National Broadband Plan 2013-2018. In this regards, I am happy to inform you that, so far, and despite teething challenges, we have hit 22 per cent threshold of the target.”
