Stakeholders in the Information and
Communications Technology industry have urged Federal government to make
available more unlicensed spectrum for the provision of broadband internet in
the rural areas, DigitalSENSE
Business news reports.
According to some of the experts who spoke to DigitalSENSE Business news,
unlicensed spectrum offers accessible spectrum to entrepreneurs with fewer
resources, which facilitates innovation. Users of unlicensed spectrum, the
report said, do not have to buy the spectrum, and are more easily able to
experiment and deploy products with minimal regulatory oversight.
President, Association of
Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Lanre Ajayi, said that spectrum ordinarily, should be
unlicensed because it is limited resources adding that unlicensed spectrum is
used for the benefit of the people and need not to be given commercial value.
He cited Wi-Fi which according to him is an
unlicensed frequency that smartphones and laptops use for internet connectivity
at hotspots.
"Government should make available more
frequencies as unlicensed for use in the rural areas in the provision of
broadband internet just as United States is doing", he stated.
Managing director, Internet Exchange Point
of Nigeria (IXPN), Mohammed Rudman, said that unlicensed spectrum could be
deployed in small communities for internet connectivity and added that unlicensed
spectrum such as Industrial Scientific Medical (ISM) bands operating on 2.4 ghz
among others, are mostly used by university communities and research centres
among others.
"Presently, such unlicensed frequency
is being used in some towns in Jigawa and Kano states to provide internet
connectivity within those towns," Rudman added.
Chairman, Linkserve, a pioneer internet
service provider, Chima Onyekwere, maintained that unlicensed spectrum has proven
over time to be stable in service provisioning, saying that it is also suitable
for providing internet connectivity in rural areas.
Onyekwere however noted that such spectrum
are not designed for profit making which means that for it to be made available
for rural broadband internet, government needs to subsidize it for the
operators arguing that unlicensed frequencies cannot propagate very far because
they are higher which make them suitable for community connectivity.
Chukwudi Obi
No comments:
Post a Comment