Nigeria has achieved 40.18 per cent broadband penetration, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Alli Ibrahim Pantami, disclosed on Thursday.

The minister revealed this while inaugurating Broadband Implementation Steering Committee, BISC, to accelerate the attainment of 70 per cent broadband penetration target by 2025 in Abuja.

Pantami, who expressed satisfaction with the contribution of the sector to the nation’s GDP, described the contribution as unprecedented.

“If you look at the contribution of technology to our GDP, what we have achieved in the first quota of 2020 is unprecedented, the contribution is 14.07 per cent, so this is a clear indication that the more there is proper penetration, the more our GDP will increase.

“Part of the plan is that we are targeting at least 90 per cent of our population in Nigeria to get access to broadband, while the penetration, we are targeting 70 per cent.

“This has been going on for sometimes; the time we started this, the broadband penetration was 31 per cent but based on the report released by the NCC just last week, the broadband penetration now is 40.18 per cent. Within that period we achieved almost 10% of broadband penetration in less than a year,” he stated.

He explained that the new Broadband Plan 2020-2025, was designed to deliver data download speeds across Nigeria at a minimum 25mbps in urban areas, and 10Mbps in rural areas, with effective coverage available to at least 90 per cent of the population by 2025 at a price not more than N390 per 1GB of data (i.e. 2 per cent of median income or 1% of minimum wage).

The plan, he said, was being tailored inline with the pledge by President Muhammadu Buhari to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.

Vanguard