Fresh plans by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to auction the remaining part of the 2.6 gigahertz frequency spectrum this year is ‘being worked out’, sources at the Commission told New Telegraph last weekend. The 2.6 gigahertz spectrum auction, conducted by the Commission last year saw only MTN Nigeria participating with a lot of apathy from other prospective investors and operators. The NCC, had, following the apathy, organised a postmortem stakeholder engagement to find out reasons for the shirking away of most of the telecoms firms in the auction.
At the engagement held in Lagos, the chief reason stated by the operators for their non-participation was high cost of selling the spectrum, among others.
For instance, the six slots of the total 14 slots on the 2.6 Ghz spectrum band cost MTN Nigeria N18.96 billion.
MTN after making the payment said its participation as borne out of the need to get the spectrum to be able roll out and provide the full range of LTE services to Nigerians, empowering Nigeria with the latest mobile broadband technology.
Since the 2.6 Ghz spectrum post-mortem stakeholder engagement was held late last year, the regulator has been silent on what will be its next line of action.
Responding to this newspaper’s enquiry, however, a management source at NCC told our correspondent, “The NCC has not rested on its oars; it is working assiduously to ensure that the spectrum is given out to operators in order to deepen telecoms service access across the country.”
Another source said the NCC is looking at re-auctioning the spectrum again before the end of second quarter.
“Well, we want to believe that by June, this year, the NCC would have auctioned the spectrum,” the source said.
Meanwhile, the European Union has commended Nigeria with regards to the sale and management of spectrum, saying the NCC has handled spectrum management with the highest transparency compared with what obtains in other African countries.
The European Union Vice President of the Digital Single Market, Mr. Andrus-Ansip, gave the commendation at a meeting held between the European Union and NCC, led by Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman at the Abuja office of the European Union recently.
Ansip opined that Nigeria is doing very well in this aspect compared with what obtains in other African countries.
“I want to commend the transparent manner the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, under Prof. Danbatta has handled with transparency the sale and management of Nigeria’s Spectrum,” he added.
The meeting with the Vice President of EU’ Digital Single Market was convened to share with Nigeria and her relevant telecommunications and ICT agencies the story and experience of the Digital Single market of the EU.
The benefits of creating digital registers towards achieving digital identity and related digital applications and solutions formed the core of the meeting.
The meeting had in attendance the Minister of Communications, Mr. Adebayo Shittu, the EVC NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, and representatives of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Galaxy Backbone Plc and Nigeria Computer Society (NCS).
It was disclosed at the meeting that a European Union Investment Fund to the tune of nearly 350 billion Euros is in place to support Africa’s digital revolution, particularly efforts at digital governance and digital single market for the African Union.
There is also the EU Multi-national Trans- Saharan Fiber Project being administered by the African Development Bank, ADB.
The EU Digital Single market on its website advances this powerful argument, “The Internet and digital technologies are transforming our world.
But existing barriers online mean citizens miss out on goods and services, Internet companies and start-ups have their horizons limited, and businesses and governments cannot fully benefit from digital tools.
It’s time to make the EU’s single market fit for the digital age – tearing down regulatory walls and moving from 28 national markets to a single one.
This could contribute N415 billion per year to our economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs’.
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