Insecurity, FX challenges slow rural telephony drive | The Guardian Nigeria News - Nigeria and World News ⬇️
• 40% drop in rural telecoms investments since COVID-19 outbreak• 25m Nigerians yearn for basic telephony serviceA major GSM operator confirmed to The Guardian, yesterday, that telecoms investment in rural areas have plummeted by as much as 40 per cent since COVID-19 outbreak because of several challenges confronting service expansion.
With these challenges increasing daily, The Guardian gathered that the last time operators extended services to any rural area in the country was pre-COVID era. Borno State has the highest access gap of 83.41 per cent in the country. This is followed by Yobe with 81.54 per cent; Zamfara, 79.23 per cent; Taraba, 77.35 per cent and Sokoto with 75.52 per cent.
As at September, out of the over 300 million connected lines, active telephone users were 209.9 million, this is even as the country’s teledensity increased to 109.9 per cent. Internet users via the GSM platforms, according to NCC, were 151.7 million and broadband penetration was 44.6 per cent, which is enjoyed by some 85.2 million people in the country.
On the other hand, the last six states with least tower infrastructure are Kebbi, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Gombe, Yobe and Zamfara with 415; 367; 363; 356; 316 and 283 Base Transceiver Station respectively. While 5G coverage is still very minute in the country, NCC, in the draft consultation document for deployment of the technology, disclosed that as at December 2019, coverage data showed that most rural areas only have access to 89.8 per cent 2G networks coverage, while 3G has coverage of over 74 per cent.
He said issues of recent flooding experienced in many parts of the country poses another challenge to both underground and over-ground cables. “The issues around USSD debt by the banks may become a major escalation and when operators withdraw USSD services to non-paying institutions, it might throw the entire Fintech sector into a major situation that would impact negatively on the growth recorded.”
“So, no operator would consider going to those areas. Why do you think the much-talked-about Infrastructure Companies have refused to move to site for almost three years now?” Stressing that other governors need to key into the agreement, Joda said until states understand the end benefits of how broadband and other telecoms service would open up their states economically, “expansion of services would be greatly limited.”
According to him, expansion and coverage of rural areas require major grants to those ready to go there.
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