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THE Nigerian communications Commission, NCC, has charged telecom operators in the country to develop new services and sources of value generation and revenue streams in their operations. Prof. Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman, said telecom operators should provide solutions to consumer needs in other vertical areas of education, health and government services.
Speaking at the Emerging Technologies Consultative and ICT Innovation Forum in Kano State, Danbatta said that operators in the sector should be innovative to make different aspects of consumer’s life better.
“It is a fact that finding local solutions to the challenges of the industry is a key policy of the present administration and we acknowledge that Kano state has been one of the prominent states at the forefront of technology innovation in Nigeria; Kano State being “Centre of Commerce’ in Nigeria and has the largest concentration of technology hubs in the northwest region of Nigeria.
“The ICT Innovation Forum has become necessary to promote local content with emphasis on the tech-ecosystem, identifying unmet needs and facilitate Public Private Partnership, PPP. Based on this premise, we themed our forum ‘Developing Nigeria’s Tech Eco-System: Imperative for improving Local Content.’ With the growing pressure of globalisation, every government as well as captains of industry are charged with the burden of finding ways to ensure that we remain competitive and capable of fulfilling local demand.
“Not only that, but given the wide availability of information technology to serve markets globally, it is imperative that the right framework are developed to enhance the ability of indigenous companies to maximally explore and exploit local opportunities, as well as remain globally competitive. Whereas Mobile Network Operators have developed infrastructure to support voice services and access to data, it has become expedient for them to unlock new services and sources of value generation and revenue streams in their operations.
“It has therefore become necessary to innovate on how to access segments of the consumer wallets not presently allocated to communication by providing solutions to consumer needs in other vertical areas of education, health, government services, etc., made available through telecoms network infrastructure.
“The commission, in its effort to encourage tech entrepreneurship and innovation in the ICT sector, has embarked on visitation to various tech start-ups across the six geopolitical zones to assess their development and challenges. We intend to assist the various tech hubs with the right regulatory intervention to ease their operations,” he said.
– Aug. 16, 2019 @ 18:35 GMT |
Tags: NCC charges telecom operators to innovate
