In a bid to expand the deployment of broadband across Nigeria, the country’s telecom regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has decided to pursue the release of a 60-gigahertz (Ghz) spectrum band from the National Frequency Management Commission (NFMC).
The Commission believes that the release of the spectrum will help address the continued demand by operators and data user for ubiquitous broadband services.
Speaking in Lagos at a stakeholder forum, Director of Spectrum Administration, Austine Nwaulune, explained that the 60-gigahertz (Ghz) spectrum band would ease the pressure on currently utilised spectrum resources, and is desirable for applications that require high transmission broadband and high data transmission security.
He admitted that the licence is not yet being utilised in Nigeria, as it is the case in United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America. “We are urging companies that do anything that technology allows to come into the spectrum, use it and then notify us. They do not need to pay for it, as it is a non commercial spectrum,” he said.
Nwaulune disclosed that NCC has already made a request for the spectrum, which is not restricted, but used for anything that technologies allow a company to do.
According to him, the spectrum would address the growing demand by operators for data centric, high speed and high capacity links for metropolitan environment. He added that the release of the frequency spectrum, would possibly help Nigeria achieve the 30 per cent broadband penetration by the end of 2018.