Nigeria - infrastructure sharing

Nigeria: NCC Advocates Sharing of Telecoms Infrastructure

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has advised telecommunication service providers to consider Co-location Infrastructure Project (CIP) which will allow sharing of infrastructure to make the services more efficient.

At the stakeholders forum on the project in Abuja yesterday, the NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Engineer Ernest Ndukwe, said the project will facilitate the construction of passive (shareable) infrastructures such as masts or towers, land, perimeter fence, generator, storage tank for fuel, shelter, among others.

He said the project will serve the purpose of extending telecommunications and ICT services to underserved communities in the country.

He said the NCC will use CIP project, which is part of the Universal Service Provision Fund and Accelerated Mobile Phone Expansion Project, to provide subsidy for the construction of Base Transceiver Station (BTS) in remote parts of the country.

He said the USPF deemed it necessary to also provide subsidy to support the provision of co-location infrastructures in unserved/underserved communities so as to stimulate competition and reduce operating cost of ICT service.

"CIP project will also reduce or eliminate the need for each service provider to construct and own individual mast, generators and reduce the usual concerns about associated impact on the environment," he said.

He added that the idea will assist the operators to enhance their network performance, saying that the benefits can also reach subscribers in term of better coverage and tariff reduction.

He said the USPF shall be guided by the objective of covering all the states of the federation in implementing the CIP.