Stakeholders across the telecommunications and digital economy sector have reached consensus that adoption of Dig-Once Policy in Nigeria is the secret to attaining the 90,000km of additional fibre deployment ambition of the federal government.
The stakeholders made the call on Thursday in Lagos at National Dig-Once Policy Forum which marked the 8th Policy Implementation Assisted Forum (PIAFo), where they urged federal and state authorities to adopt a coordinated framework for fibre deployment alongside road construction and other major public infrastructure.
The forum, themed “Accelerating Nigeria’s Digital Backbone: Dig-Once Policy, Project BRIDGE and Strategies for Effective Fibre Deployment,” focused on aligning infrastructure planning to improve broadband access, de-risk backbone infrastructure rollout and reduce network failures.
Dig-once policy as coordinated fibre deployment framework
Dig-once policy implementation involves installing fibre ducts alongside roads, rail lines and other public infrastructure during construction or rehabilitation. It allows multiple operators to deploy cables through shared ducts, reducing repeated digging, and the timeline and cost of delivering broadband to final users.
Convener of the forum, Omobayo Azeez, said the policy lowers deployment costs, reduces infrastructure damage, improves safety and shortens rollout timelines.
“At a time when Project BRIDGE is taking off, Dig-once stands out as the policy instrument that can significantly de-risk implementation and maximise long-term national value,” he said.
Project BRIDGE, a $2 billion federal government initiative backed by $500 million in World Bank funding, aims to deploy 90,000 kilometres of fibre nationwide to raise the digital economy backbone infrastructure from its current 35,000km to 125,000km of fibre by 2030.
Fragmented deployment, rising damage
The stakeholders described fibre infrastructure deployment in Nigeria as fragmented, expensive, and poorly protected.
President, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria, Tony Emoekpere, said the challenge is not policy design but execution.
“We have so many policies we don’t execute well. What Dig-Once offers is an opportunity to correct this,” he said, adding that even operators frequently damage one another’s cables during repeated digging, thus increasing repair costs and service disruptions.
Data presented by the Chief Executive Officer, Dimensions Data Limited, Gbenga Olabiyi, showed that road construction is responsible for 60 per cent of network outages due to fibre cuts. He drew attention to the gap between the infrastructure Nigeria has and what it can actually deliver if a coordinated framework is adopted.
“Nigeria currently has about 35,000 kilometres of fibre in the ground, yet only 16 per cent of Nigerians are connected to it. Broadband penetration stands at 45 per cent. Lagos alone has a penetration rate of over 70 per cent,” Mr Olabiyi said.
He emphasised that the failure to address the missing fibre link over the years has led to saturation of connectivity in urban centres, while the hinterlands are left either unconnected or poorly served.
Technology to detect fibre cuts
The Director of Strategies, Huawei Technology Nigeria Limited, Eric Chen, presented a fibre sensing technology that detects and locates cable damage in real time.
Mr Chen explained that fibre cable, by its nature, can function as a sensor along every metre of its length, detecting temperature changes, vibration, and physical strain.
According to him, Huawei has developed a system that combines a sensing device attached to a live fibre with an artificial intelligence unit that runs a 32-dimensional algorithm to analyse the signals collected.
He stated that the signal collection accuracy of the system reaches 99.9 per cent, and that Huawei began investing in making the technology commercially available two years ago after backbone transmission customers raised repeated complaints about the time lost searching for cut locations manually.
Defining roles under a dig-once model
Deputy Director, Strategic Business Initiatives at ipNX Nigeria Limited, Mr Segun Okuneye, said under dig-once policy, road contractors should install ducts during constructions.
He said the repeated excavation of the road leads to incessant destruction of existing infrastructure and trigger service blackouts with operators bearing additional costs of repair of replacing the fibre.
Participants at the forum also quoted the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to have said that out of 50,000 fibre cut incidents recorded in a year, about 30,000 which represent 60%, occurred during road construction and rehabilitation.
They thus called for a review of existing road construction and building codes to accommodate fibre conduits installation in the original design standard of the infrastructure planning.
In addition, the Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said operators should focus not just on digging once but on eliminating unnecessary digging altogether by sharing existing infrastructure and jointly replacing legacy cables that are reaching the end of their operational life.
“Early fibres laid 15 to 20 years ago are now ageing, and the industry needs a plan to replace it without everyone digging the same routes again,” he said.
CNII enforcement
On infrastructure protection, Mr Okuneye of ipNX said responsibility must fall at every level including government, operators, and local communities.
He noted that the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) is already working with the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) and the National Security and Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to enforce the Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII) order and prosecute those responsible for fibre cuts.
However, Head of Regulation and Public Relations at FibreOne Broadband Limited, Kenny Joda, said enforcement remains weak in practice.
According to him, his company experienced four separate fibre cuts in April alone, and that switching from iron conduits to cabinet-based protection have simply shifted the vandal’s target on cabinets.