Nokia wants to help Nigeria improve broadband
10th Feb 2015 Mobile telecommunications giant, Nokia has expressed their willingness to partner with Nigeria’s government to improve broadband services across the country. The organization is convinced about Nigeria’s commitment to achieve the goal and gave the assurance on the 3rd of February at a Nokia roundtable meeting in Lagos. The event hosted over one hundred and fifty industry experts from different parts of the industry.
Prior to the Nokia’s involvement Nigeria’s communication commission had previously revealed that plans are underway to increase penetration from the present eight percent, to thirty percent by the year 2018. The Commision also intends to cover eighty percent of the country’s population with LTE and 3G internet services. Consumers are expected to enjoy a minimum download speed of 1.5 megabytes per second.
Benjamin Najm, Vice president and Head of Middle East and Africa, Nokia networks, affirmed that Nigeria is a priority country in Africa, for Nokia, and to that effect, has opened a second office in Lagos to increase delivery and output of operations and mobile broadband facilities. The first office was opened in Abuja.
He is quoted as saying “Mobile broadband infrastructure in Nigeria needs to be strengthened to significantly improve network coverage and speed across the country including mid size cities and rural areas. To help achieve national broadband plan’s objectives and drive the country’s socio-economic development, we are committed to providing operators here with our advanced 2G, 3G and 4G technologies and global expertise in services to build and run the network’s cost efficiently.”
Dr. Sam Nwosu, Nokia’s director in Nigeria is of the opinion that Nigeria needs to address infrastructural problems and other administrative issues which hamper the effectiveness of network operators.