NCC Claims The Country Is Set For 5G Tech
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced that the nation is prepared for a 5 G broadband network to provide quicker and more productive internet services.
As the Commission has indicated, it will soon review Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to ascertain their degree of compliance with the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Regulation.
The Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management, Mr. Sunday Dare, stated this at an interactive meeting with newsmen in Abuja.
He said that the NCC was preparing the country to undertake the 5G technology by gathering key stakeholders to discuss political, regulatory and technical problems, apart from creating a roadmap.
“We have opened forums on the spectrum for drones, and so on. We are efficiently and effectively leading debates on the development of new technologies. That does not suggest that we are trying to abandon 2G, 3G and 4G. Each of these levels of technology has its advantages and the reality remains that you have to switch from one level to another,” Dare explained.
On the MNOs review, Dare claimed that it was during a similar procedure in August 2015 that the regulatory body discovered that 5.2 million SIM cards had not been properly registered by MTN Nigeria Communications Limited.
This, he believes, led to N1.04tn fine being imposed on the mobile operator before eventually being reduced to N330bn and on May 24, MTN finished paying the fine.
The exercise, he said, was not to make money for the government, but to ensure compliance with recommended processes.
Talking of the penetration of broadband, the NCC representative claimed Nigeria has achieved the 30 percent milestone and published the data publicly for all to inquire.
“Those who complain we don’t cite old ITU documents. They forget that the data used by the ITU are given by NCC. We are data custodians and we have advanced computation techniques. We reached and exceeded the target on the basis of empirical data,” he indicated.
Jun 6, 2019
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