ATCON hosts virtual stakeholders’ engagement on National Broadband Plan March 25

*The stakeholders’ engagement is aimed to achieve the set target of Broadband penetration in Nigeria with great speed, and leverage the wide spectrum of Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria sub-groups for effective participation in the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has announced plan to host its maiden edition of virtual structured engagement with key stakeholders in the Nigerian Telecoms & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector on the New National Broadband Plan 2020─2025 Thursday, March 25, 2021.

The theme of the stakeholders’ engagement virtual forum is: “Realising The New Set Target of 70% of Broadband Penetration”

Ikechukwu Nnamani, President, and Wole Abu, Publicity Secretary of ATCON, in a statement made available to ConsumerConnect said the he buy-in of the various sub-groups under the membership of ATCON would be leveraged to ensure and guarantee that the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 is adequately positioned to deliver its ultimate purposes for the generality of Nigerians more quickly and strategically.

ATCON stated, traditionally, the Association is an organisation that usually gives its members the opportunity to review and provide insightful approaches and solutions along with Ministry, NCC, NITDA and state governments as to what needs to be done to support various programmes and projects that are earmarked for the successful implementation of the previous National Broadband Plan under past ministers.

In terms of strategic objectives of the forthcoming event, the body said forum is to complement the various strategic activities already embarked upon by the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

It is also to achieve the set target of Broadband penetration in Nigeria with great speed, and leverage the wide spectrum of ATCON sub-groups for effective participation in the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 by giving them the opportunity to access the plan and suggest various ways to speed up the realisation of the established target by the government.

They noted the stakeholders’ engagement is to serve as a veritable platform to galvanise the needed input that reflects the thinking of the telecom and ICT sector, and create an opportunity to review the relevance of the Nigerian policy environment vis-a-vis the telecom operating environment.

The statement said Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, Honourable Minister for Communications and Digital Economy, is expected to deliver a keynote address on “Enhancing the contributions of sub-sector in the Nigerian national broadband plans through enabling policies”.

Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice-Chairman/CEO, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); Mr. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director-General/CEO, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and Engr. Aliyu Aziz Abubakar, Director-General/CEO, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) will share their respective Commissions’ and agency’s perspectives via a paper presentation titled: “Aggregating the potentials of the sub-sector to meet the new broadband set target of 70%”.

Each sub-sector is seen as an integral part of the entire ecosystem of the Nigerian telecom and ICT sector, hence, selected representatives of various subgroups are expected to make a presentation on how the new National Nigeria Broadband Plan 2020-2025 is impacting the subsector and list what can be done to make the plan realises its set target on or before the stated period, noted the statement.

According to ATCON, some of the sub-sectors/sub-groups that their inputs would be collated which are germane to the implementation of the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025 are Towers/Base Stations Providers, MNOs, Over The Top (OTT) Players, Value Added Services Providers (VAS), Metro-Fibre Operators, Submarine/Undersea Cable Operators, Internet Services Providers (ISP).

Others are in the wholesale segment, including data centre operators, Internet Service Providers (ISPs); and retail segment, comprising digital skills/capacity building, fintech/e-commerce operators, cloud computing, manufacturers’ representative, satellite operators, e-government services providers and equipment dealers.

ATCON stated: “We are confident that this special engagement would enable us to carry out the industry mapping with respect to the new Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-2025.”

The Association added this very important strategic and flagship event will serve as a veritable platform for the key stakeholders in the telecom and ICT sector to brainstorm and proffer solutions for the realisation of the new set target of 70% of broadband penetration more expediently in Nigeria.