Stakeholders in Nigeria’s telecommunications and digital infrastructure sectors have called for a shift from network coverage to actual usage as efforts intensify to extend meaningful connectivity to rural and underserved communities.
The call was made at the second edition of the Rural Connectivity Summit, organised by Business Metrics Limited in Lagos.
At the summit, regulators, government agencies, telecom operators, infrastructure providers, satellite companies, technology firms, investors and other industry stakeholders examined the financing, power, infrastructure and policy challenges limiting rural connectivity.
In his Keynote address, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Abba Aliyu, disclosed the large size of Nigeria’s base stations and the volume of diesel consumed.
According to him, “Across the digital sector, when you are talking about rural base stations and rural connectivity, we have about over 11,000 rural base stations. And it’s estimated that over 40 million litres of diesel are consumed every month on powering a lot of these rural base stations.”
President of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Tony Emoekpere, advised that the industry must move beyond measuring progress mainly by coverage and subscriber numbers, arguing that the real test is whether people in rural communities can afford and use the services available to them.
“We need to move away from coverage and think about how to ensure that people in rural communities use the technology services rendered to them,” he said, while identifying the cost of devices and data as major barriers to meaningful digital participation.