NATCOM signals dawn of superfast broadband internet access

Do you know that improving internet speed from 3 mega bytes per second to 20 mega bytes per second can lead to a 10 percent increase in a country’s economic growth? How?

Consider this: You open YouTube, click on a video then watch as it buffers and buffers before you finally get to watch the video and when you do, you will have to stop and click over and over again.

Well, the reason is simple. The bandwidth is low, hovering between 1.5 to 3mbps which is why the video has to buffer and spool before it can finally be watched.

Now, let’s travel to the UK. Click on the same video and on the same device and watch what happens. The video doesn’t buffer. It opens and plays on the first click because you are probably on a 4G plan with speeds hovering between 10 – 20mbps which enable superfast internet connection.

That improvement in speed, experts say, can trigger a 10 percent increase in a country’s GDP and with that in mind, the federal government of Nigeria under the immediate past Minister for Communication Technology, Omobola Johnson inaugurated the Presidential Committee charged with evolving a national broadband strategy and roadmap with a clear target to achieve five-fold broadband increase by 2018.

The committee had as co-chairs, Jim Ovia, Visafone chairman and Ernest Ndukwe former NCC Vice Chairman, and 15 other members drawn from  various stakeholder groups in the sector.

The committee’s recommendation was a huge vote for broadband internet access which it described as “as a transformative technology that levels the playing field and gives businesses access to regional, national, and international markets irrespective of geographical location.”

Going further, the committee advised that for “Nigeria to become one of the world’s leading economies by year 2020, high-speed broadband networks that will provide every Nigerian with fast, reliable and affordable internet access is a fundamental requirement.”

The work of the committee, their findings as well as road map and strategy is captured in a 105 page document called “The Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2013” which captures their thoughts for making superfast broadband internet access a reality in Nigeria.

What emerges from that document is a clarion call for the adoption of 3G (or HSPA) and 4GLong term Evolution broadband technology even though as the document makes clear “Broadband can be provided using a range of different types of technology, each with its own particular strengths and weaknesses.”

But with Nigeria’s peculiar situation in mind, the committee has recommended that “At this juncture 3G (or HSPA) mobile broadband technology provides the fastest way for the delivery of universal mobile broadband access in Nigeria now and in the near future, while targeting LTE technology for future high capacity networks. 3G and LTE are indeed the most ideal solutions for leapfrogging Nigeria to high speed broadband delivery. As a result, the Nigerian mobile broadband industry needs more spectra for broadband rollout. The Federal government shall encourage its relevant organs to move quickly towards allocating more spectra for mobile broadband.”

With this recommendation, industry watchers see the news of the upgrade and reactivation of NATCOM’s SAT 3 as very good news for Nigeria which still has internet broadband services that rank among the slowest and most expensive in Africa.

NATCOM is the consortium that took over NITEL/MTEL in a guided liquidation after paying a $252.2m dollars fee but the re-activation of SAT3 and launch of 4G LTE services will see the company commit another N1.2bn in investments which proves clearly that NATCOM is different from other companies who had attempted to buy NITEL/MTEL in the past. It also allays the fears of skeptics who had expressed apprehension that whoever buys NITEL/MTEL would balkanize it for its assets.

But the major dividend from the reactivation of SAT3 is expected to be reaped by customers for whom 4G superfast internet access will open up a new vista of value added services with true convergence of communication, learning, leisure and entertainment in line with the Federal Government’s transformational broadband policy.

SAT3 is short for the South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable (SAT3),  a submarine communications cable with 16 landing points spread between Europe and Africa with stops along the West African sub-region from Nigeria to Senegal and south-ward to Angola and South Africa. Once reactivated and fully operational, SAT3  will provide access to global markets and enable “seamless and diverse” connectivity to the rest of the world.

According to statement from NATCOM, the SAT3 cable boasts one of the lowest latency routes from Africa to Europe and is currently operated with full in-system protection. The doubling of its capacity positions it as the leading submarine cable with the widest reach in the world.

The reactivation is coming on the heels of SAT3’s fourth upgrade which has boosted its system from 420Gbps to 920Gbps in the northern segments and from 340Gbps to 800Gbps in the southern segments. The cable upgrade addresses the global capacity demands for fast internet connectivity, data-hungry applications, high-quality video-on-demand and increasing social media usage, thus enhancing customer experience.

 

Patrick Atuanya