Dec. 20, 2021

The Nigeria Communications Commission says it will mete out regulatory sanctions against Infrastructure Companies (Infracos) who default on Broadband deployment timelines.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Umar Garba Danbatta disclosed this at the 6th College of Fellows Roundtable Symposium, organised by the Nigerian Society of Engineers.

According to the EVC, the country has been divided by the NCC into 7 zones; the existing Geo-political zones, as well as Lagos, because of its strategic importance, and all the zones have been assigned an Infrastructure Company to deploy fibre infrastructure.

He noted that the idea is consistent with the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy to ensure that we have point of access of 10megabits per second in all Local government Areas of the country, as well as a data speed of about 20megabits per second in urban area.

Danbatta said it is for this reason that the infrastructure companies have been issued licenses and “I’ve told the NCC to mobilise to site”.

“There’s a timeline which we want to see credible evidence of infrastructure deployment or else the license can be withdrawn, and compliance monitoring mechanism is in place to monitor the deployment or if there’s no credible evidence of deployment, then we’ll be able to take regulatory action that will lead to even revocation of the license”.

“The license was issued about 7 months ago and they have about 5 months left to show us evidence of infrastructure deployment, not just in major cities, but a point of access in all the 774 LGAs of the country”.

He however warned that if “we do not see any credible evidence of deployment then we’ll take the necessary regulatory action as the NCC deems appropriate”.