Nigeria: World Bank has criticised high telephony and leased line costs, though costs had fallen in recent years

[daily trust] Although high telephone charges are beginning to come down world over, Nigerians still suffers from relatively high telephony costs, a World Bank report has said.

The report which was released last week said in the area of telecommunications cost, Nigeria does not appear to have a distinct advantage over its competitors.

According to the Bank's report the cost of a 3-minute fixed line phone call to the United State is one of the highest in the world. "More importantly perhaps the cost of a dedicated E1 line to the US remains high at $8,000 per month".

But the bank said that Nigeria is making great strides in the are as the price of a telephone call to the US has come down drastically from $7.15 per three minutes call in 2000 to less then $2 in 2005

The Bank recommended that policy makers must now address the business segment of the telephone market and continue to make progress on important telephone reforms such as the regulatory regim, interconnectivity issues, use of share infrastructure and quality of service especially in the mobile sector.

Meanwhile, the report said the use of the internet in Nigeria has started to take off recently but remains far behind leading competitors.

"But Nigeria lags behind many of its competitors in the availability of internet hosts and as a result, does not boast as many internet users as other countries

However, this situation is quickly improving.

"In 2006, Nigeria had 0.8 internet hosts per 10,000 people while the comparable figures for Malaysia and the Philippines were 35 and 4.8 respectively"

The bank said the access to broadband is highly desirable to curtail the problem.

World Bank - Telephone Charges High, Internet Usage Low