Nigeria has acquired a fibre optic telecommunications infrastructure measuring about 41,000 kilometres, the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, has said.
Johnson said this at the 11th Annual Conference of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, which ended in Abuja on Friday.
About 11,000km of the fibre optic network was laid between 2010 and 2013; and 4,000 of this capacity is terrestrial cable along power transmission line.
Fibre optic cable is made from strands of glass and is used to carry high capacity telecommunications signal especially across long distances.
Before the use of fibre optic, copper cable was the popular material but the new material has the advantages of higher capacity and longevity.
Johnson said although Nigeria had acquired tremendous bandwidth capacity on the international scene through the deployment of undersea cables by telecommunications operators, the country had not witnessed marching deployment of fibre optic cables within.
She said, “Bandwidth capacity on undersea fibre-optic networks has increased significantly. Nigeria had access to a potential 4.76Tb/s of international bandwidth capacity at the time the ministry was created in 2010. Since then, an additional 5.1 Tb/s of capacity has been added making a total of 10Tb/s, and this total is expected to increase further to a potential 15Tb/s by 2014.
“The rollout of the terrestrial fibre-optic network is not keeping pace with the increasing international bandwidth landing on Nigeria’s shores. Approximately 30,000km of fibre had been laid as at 2010 and we estimate that an additional 11,000km was laid since then (of which 4,000 was over power line).
“However, additional fibre is mainly duplications along a few commercial routes. The government’s response has been to facilitate increased confidence in the Nigerian communications sector that has led to a willingness to increase investment. This has been done by providing a predictable and stable environment that supports the development of the industry.”
The inadequate broadband capacity, according to her, can also be seen in the insufficient number of base stations deployed by service providers as well as in the growing number of people that require service.
She said, “The number of base stations in Nigeria has increased exponentially since the inception of GSM; from 116 in 2001 to about 21,000 by 2010. The pace of growth has, however, slowed even as some existing base stations have been decommissioned as a result of terror attacks, theft and vandalism.
“Significantly, more base stations need to be deployed across the country to meet our national target of a five-fold increase in broadband penetration by 2018.”
In contrast, however, the number of subscribers to telecommunications networks had been increasing, Johnson added, with active subscriber base above 110,000 by the end of July; thus, giving a clear indication that the infrastructure gap in the country was significant.
BY EVEREST AMAEFULE
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