The federal government and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum are making efforts to further deepen broadband penetration in the country.

The Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Umar Danbatta during a courtesy visit by the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) to his office, revealed that the federal government is working on an initiative with the governors’ forum that would see to laying fibre that would cover up to 18,000km in the country.

The initiative, according to Danbatta, would be driven by the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

The telecommunications regulatory authority also insisted that the nation would attain the set target of 30% by the end of 2018.

According to This Day, the NCC boss spoke at the 10th anniversary lecture and awards of Business Journal where he reiterated the commission’s desire to make sure that Nigeria attains the target broadband penetration.

The nation, Danbatta claims, was at 22% broadband penetration as at March 2018.

Speaking during a panel session titled ‘Policy Frameworks towards Sustainable Local Technology‘ at the 2018 edition of Techpoint Inspired, the Executive Director, Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, Gbenga Sesan revealed that the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2013 (PDF) wasn’t meant to measure mobile broadband.

“What we plan to measure is terrestrial infrastructure-enabled broadband, with a minimum of 1.5mbps.”

Sesan who was part of the team that drafted the plan, further stated that the provision of the plan was such that when accessing video content online, it shouldn’t buffer.

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Based on Sesan’s revelation, NCC’s figure about the present state of broadband penetration is questionable which further reduces the chance of actually achieving the 30% target by the end of 2018.