BROADBAND INTERNET- New Face of Nigeria's ICT Revolution

FOR many Nigerians, browsing or surfing the Net has not been that fast, high speed, time saving and money saving experience of their dream.
It is indeed a challenge when they have to download heavy files; thus rather than high speed and fast downloads, they waste valuable time, energy and money without having the benefit of high-speed Internet experience.
Yet, all over the world, surfing the Net has become a wonderful activity, thanks to the widespread use of broadband, which offer higher speed Internet, thereby, making the downloading of files a lot easier and faster.
The Nigerian Communications Commission, in its well-known life-changing role in the telecommunications sector in Nigeria is determined to bring broadband Internet experience to Nigerian homes and offices, and therefore has declared 2007 the year of broadband. To help further the message of broad and thereby, make NCC achieve this goal and to also live its own pay-off, which is shaping the future, therefore, IT & Telecoms Digest decided to offer the second stakeholders' forums as the platform for fashioning Nigeria's broadband future.
Broadband is for high speed Internet; it is for downloading of heavy files. Nigerians are becoming more technology savvy by the day. So, the download speed they are now used to can no longer be sufficient for serious work. Government are beginning to sing the e-government slogan; so they need broadband access to quicken their steps towards this process.
Broadband enables you to download information at higher speed, fast and efficiently; so you spend less time, thereby be more productive and are able to better manage and maximise your time.
And, the NCC, is its wisdom, recognised the need for quick data access and consequently, declared the year 2007 as the Year of Boardband. Following up on this, as Africa's leading ICT magazine, IT & Telecoms Digest took up the challenge to anchor this message so as to deliver it strongly to Nigerians.
Therefore, it was quite natural that IT & Telecoms Digest's second stakeholders' Forum had the theme: "Broadban Internet - New Phase of Nigeria's ICT Revolution," with the sub-theme: Driving Access to ICT with Boardband Internet - Prospect, possibilities, challenges.
NCC wants to see Nigeria ranked as one of the top broadband countries in the world, NCC also recognised that they needed a credible, world-class ICT magazine with an international platform to rally experts, equipment manufacturers, vendors, operators, license holders and the general public together in an interactive forum. Hence their choice of IT & Telecom Digest as the partner to work with for the forum on Broadband. It also came naturally that this fits in well in the second stakeholders' forum, a programme initiated by IT & Telecom Digest in 2006 with the maiden edition focusing on the then newly introduced Unified Licensing regime.
"We used the forum to give manufacturers the opportunity to tell Nigerians what they have got to offer in terms of technology for broadband. That was why from the manufacturers, for instance, we had the likes of Motorola, Alcatel-Lucent and Redline presenting their preparedness. We also had presence from Excision and Nokia , Siemens Networks, both of who also have a lot to offer in broadband as they do in various other areas of technology.
And for operators we had Philips Projects Centre Limited, one of Nigeria's leading system integrators; we also had Netcom Africa, a company that is a leader in Internet protocol communication.
We had Swift Network, a leading broadband service provider, all these companies are many others showed how ready they are to take broadband to all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, and they were glad that the second stakeholders' forum offered them the platform to say what they can do."
After putting Nigerians positively on the global arena with phenomenal impact created by, and the unmatched growth of mobile telephony in Nigeria, the NCC in its characteristic nature of moving with the time- at other times, ahead of the times - recognised that broadband is the next logical step. On its part, as the regulator, the NCC used the occasion to tell Nigerians that it is ready to ensure fast spread of broadband as it did the spread of GSM in the country.
It was against this backdrop that the commission team up with IT & Telecom Digest to bring these leading manufacturing companies with broadband technology capacities as key resources facilitator to the forum.
The commission recognised that broadband has the potential to elevate the common and ordinary Nigerian to higher status thereby, increasing their earning power and social status. The immense economic possibilities inherent in broadband Internet, when fully implemented would translate into the Federal Government once again succeeding in its drive to empower Nigerians irrespective of their social status, place or economic background.
"Indeed, Broadband Internet is the next critical stage in our telecom revolution and we, (IT & Telecom Digest) are glad to have teamed up with the NCC to provide platform to educate the Nigerians public on the potential benefits of broadband internet and the commission's plans to ensure that all Nigerians have access to the internet and other data through broadband."

curled from the gurrdian newspapers

http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/compulife/article02