Telecoms Sector Contributes N6tn To GDP Quarterly – NCC

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Dambatta on Tuesday, disclosed that Nigeria’s telecommunications sector contributes the sum of  N6tn to Nigeria's Gross Domestic Product GDP every Quarterly year.

Dambatta disclosed this at the headquarters of the NCC in Abuja when the Senate Committee on Communications led by its Chairman, Senator Oluremi Tinubu paid a courtesy visit.

Danbatta said that in 2019, Nigeria attained 38.49% broadband penetration and the number of active mobile subscribers was 184,699,409.

According to him, the record of active Internet subscription to Global System Mobile network was 125,728,328, while the fixed-wired telephone was 9,670 as the teledensity rose to 96.76% in December 2019.

Dambatta added that the commission has commenced the operation of the Open Access Model for Infrastructure Deployment through the competitively selected infrastructure companies as a measure to deepen broadband penetration.

In addition to this, Dambatta disclosed that upon completion, the initiative is going to provide broadband fiber and connectivity to every Local Government Area in Nigeria adding that it will result in a total of 774 fiber points with a minimum access speed of 10Gbps that would generate, 28,902km of fiber deployment in the next four years.

Summing up, Dambatta noted the challenge faced by the commission including; poor power supply, multiple taxations, and insecurity in parts of the country.

Commenting on this, Tinubu said the committee visited the commission to evaluate the implementation of the 2020 budget, as well as finetune plans for the preparation of the 2021 budget.