The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) device manufacturers to produce affordable Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile devices.

Mr Bako Wakil, the Head, Technical Standards and Network Integrity, NCC, made the call on the sideline of the 2nd Type Approval Industry Working Group Meeting.

In telecommunication, LTE is a technology standard for high-speed wireless communication for mobile devices and data terminals.

It offers higher bandwidth, meaning greater connection speed, and better underlying technology for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and multimedia streaming.

Wakil said that there was the need for affordable LTE phones, as the ones available in the Nigerian market were expensive.

According to him, affordable devices will ensure that Nigerians receive the Fourth Generation (4G) technology experience.

“Operators are offering 4G services in some major cities in Nigeria now but if your device is not 4G compliant, you will not get that 4G experience. There are 4G devices but many people cannot afford them because they are expensive. It is beyond ordinary person’s reach.”

“We are appealling to the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) – Ericsson, Huawei, Tecno, to produce 4G compliant phones at cheaper rates, looking at the size of Nigerian market,” he said.

Wakil said that more LTE devices were being submitted to the commission for Type Approval and  some of the challenges of the LTE phones in the country were that OEM do not have repair centres and the warranty agreements for the phones were not clear enough.

The NCC, he noted was usually neutral on the type of technologies that telecommunications operators deploy to provide their services to customers.

He said that according to the European Commission, technology neutrality is the requirement for national regulatory authorities to take the utmost account of the desirability of making regulation technologically neutral,

According to him, the commission neither imposes nor discriminates in favour of the use of a particular type of technology.

“It is preferred that the market determine what technologies are appropriate for its development,” he said.

(NAN)