The board of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has issued two additional Infrastructure Company (Infraco) licences pursuant to its drive to deepen broadband penetration in the country.
The two new licencees are Zinox Technology Limited for Southeast and Brinks Integrated Solutions Limited for Northeast.
With this approval, the number of Infracos licenced so far is now four.
Over a year ago, MainOne Cable Company Limited had been licenced to provide services in Lagos while IHS got its licence to cover the Northcentral geopolitical zone including Abuja.
The Infraco licences are based on the NCC’s Open Access Model (OAM) in line with the National Broadband Plan (NBP) of (2013 – 2018).
By provisions of the NBP, Nigeria is expected to attain 30 percent broadband penetration by 2018.
Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Tony Ojobo, said as part of the initiative to achieve this, NCC, as the driver of this process, has so far licenced a number of companies to stimulate broadband penetration.
These include Bitflux Communications Limited (Bitflux) for 2.3 Ghz and MTN Nigeria for the 2.6 Ghz licences. Other licences are in the pipeline in this process. As at December, 2017, Nigeria had attained 22 per cent broadband penetration.
With the licensing of four Infracos: MainOne Cable, IHS, Zinox Technology and Brinks Solutions, there are three more licencees waiting for approval to bring total number to seven. These are for South South, North West and South West.
