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By Oluwatobi Opusunju
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is soon to release a new price slate for data services in the country expected to reduce how much consumers pay for mobile data and under what terms subscribers are to rollover unused data.
Also, the commission has completed a new framework that would give telcos the opportunity to participate in spectrum sharing to further expand the ability to best optimize spectrum for service delivery.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the (NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta revealed this recently at the Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAE) 2018 Annual Technology Dinner Lecture in Lagos.
“With the new framework, you can transfer, lease and share your spectrum. These recent achievements of the commission will ensure optimum utilisation of spectrum,” said Danbatta who was formally inducted as a Fellow of the Academy at the event.
NCC, NAE collaboration
The NCC’s boss said the commission’s newly inked collaboration with the NAE would bring about efficient and productive innovations.
Earlier in the month, the NCC and the NAE had explored ways to strengthen their relationship in order to improve the quality of telecom service in the country and help to proffer solutions to the myriad of challenges impacting growth in the industry such as RoW, over taxation and other infrastructural impediments.
NAE was established by a 1997 statute to promote excellence in engineering training and practice in Nigeria. The academy is often touted as the ‘think tank’ for engineering and technology in Nigeria with focus on researches on developmental policies in the industry.
Danbatta said the NCC’s collaboration with NAE would not only help to improve QoS, but also bring about disruptive innovations in the industry that will usher in a new way of doing things, as well as drive efficiency and productivity in the telecom industry in Nigeria.
“This collaboration is in line with the eight point agenda of the NCC, one of which is strategic collaboration and partnerships. To that extent, NCC has already established a new department of Research and Development,” Danbatta said.
“Only recently, we gave out 50 million naira to members of the academic staff of various universities in order to facilitate research that will translate to innovations that will lead to containment of challenges in the industry, and we look forward to seeing some of the results of this collaboration,” he added.
