Business
By Benprince Ezeh
IN the last four years, the Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC, has strengthened the implementation of its eight-point agenda.
The commission has partnered with the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, and other necessary industry stakeholders to brainstorm on how to develop a framework for leveraging Television White Spaces, TVWS, as a technology platform to extend affordable broadband services to rural, unserved and under-served communities in the country.
TVWS is the unused broadcast spectrum which can be deployed in the telecommunications sector to provide cost-effective broadband services to people in the rural, underserved and unserved areas of the country towards achieving universal access and universal service in line with the country’s digital agenda.
The collaboration with NBC was in line with the fifth pillar of the NCC’s 8-Poing Agenda focusing on facilitating strategic collaboration and partnership with necessary government agencies and stakeholders to drive the development frontiers of the industry.
The initiative for the use of TVWS in Nigeria was mid-wife by the ministry of communications and digital economy, following approval for the use of TVWS technology by the National Frequency Management Council, NFMC.
TVWS deployment is expected to further enable the NCC to facilitate its mandate to ensure universal access to digital services across the nooks and crannies of the country.
At a stakeholders’ meeting forum on a framework for the deployment of TVWS, held earlier in 2019, Austine Nwaulune, director, Spectrum Administration, NCC, said that ensuring that all Nigerians are connected is the priority at the Commission.
“We are continuously in a quest to achieving rural connectivity goal and this quest has led us, as a Commission, into embarking on several initiatives to actualise this pervasive connectivity objective in Nigeria, ” he said.
– Jan. 25, 2020 @ 12:45 GMT |
Tags: NCC moves to strengthen rural connectivity with TVWS technology
