Nigeria needs investments in 4G technology, says firm’s boss

For optimal Internet services across all area in the country, there is need to infuse fresh capital into the already existing connectivity projects.

This, according to the Acting Managing Director, 9Mobile, Stephane Beuvelet, has become imperative if Nigeria must also bridge the access gaps.

Though the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said about 126 million people are on the Internet in the country, the telecoms regulator, had also claimed that 35 million people in some 195 communities in the country are yet to have access to basic telephony services.

The Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, who noted that fresh investment will scale up development of the sector, said the Commission’s mandate has been to always promote any initiative capable of stimulating local and foreign investment in the telecommunications sector that will bridge every identified gaps and connect the unconnected.

In view of these gaps, Beuvelet, in Lagos, said the telecommunications firm is expanding, though in phases, even to the remotest part of the country.

According to him, to start with, the firm has extended its 4G services to 10 new cities, in addition to the already existing six. The 10 new locations include Aba, Abuja, Nasarawa, Calabar, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Niger, Onitsha, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Sokoto, Uyo, Aba and Ogun.

Beuvelet, who said the need to deepen the country’s Internet penetration, which he put at 30 per cent of the estimated 180 million people, became necessary because of the pace other nations of the world are moving, especially with technology.

“Apart from bringing 4G to these new cities, our 4G Internet comes with the lowest latency rate in the market that guarantees the best speed results. The network is purposely set up with adequate redundancies to neutralise the impact of shocks during downtime situations like the recent West-Africa fiber cuts experienced across the industry,” Beuvelet said.