The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has expanded its quest to deepen broadband penetration in Nigeria by approving two additional Infrastructure Company (Infraco) Licenses.
The two new Infraco licenses are Zinox Technology Limited for South East and Brinks Integrated Solutions Limited for North East. This increase the numbers of Infracos to four, after the commission licensed MainOne Cable Company Limited for Lagos and HIS for North Central geopolitical zone including Abuja, over a year ago.
The Infraco licenses are based on the NCC’s Open Access Model (OAM) in line with the National Broadband Plan (NBP) of (2013 – 2018). By the provisions of the NBP, Nigeria is expected to attain 30 percent broadband penetration by 2018.
As part of the initiative to achieve this, NCC, as the driver of this process, has so far licensed 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 licenses are in the pipeline in this process. As at December, 2017, Nigeria had attained 22% broadband penetration.
With the licensing of four Infracos: MainOne Cable, IHS, Zinox Technology and Brinks Solutions, there are three more licenses waiting for approval to bring the total number to seven.
These are for South South, North West and South West.
