2 New Infraco Licenses Approved by NCC to Increase Broadband Penetration

The board of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has approved two new Infrastructure Company (Infraco) licences in view of its drive to increase broadband penetration in the country.

 The two new licence were given to Zinox Technology Limited which recently took over Konga, for the Southeast, and Brinks Integrated Solutions Limited, for the Northeast. With this approval, the number of Infracos licenced so far is now four.

Press Release

NCC Board approves two new Infraco Licences for South East and North East

Link: https://t.co/xM6AULpFRZ pic.twitter.com/JIryXJdN8U

— ncc.gov.ng (@NgComCommission) February 7, 2018

Over a year ago, MainOne Cable Company Limited was licensed to provide services in Lagos while IHS got the licence to cover the North Central including Abuja.The Infraco licences are based on the NCC’s Open Access Model (OAM) in line with the National Broadband Plan (NBP) of (2013 – 2018). By provision of the NBP, Nigeria is expected to have attained 30% broadband penetration before the end of 2018.

NCC Public Affairs Director, Tony Ojobo, said:

“As part of the initiative to achieve this, NCC, as the driver of this process, has so far licenced a number of companies to stimulate broadband penetration.These include Bitflux Communications Limited (Bitflux) for 2.3 Ghz and MTN Nigeria for the 2.6 Ghz licences. Other licences are also being processed. As at December, 2017, Nigeria had attained 22% broadband penetration”.

With the licensing of four Infracos: MainOne Cable, IHS, Zinox Technology and Brinks Solutions, there are three more licencees waiting for approval to bring the total number of Infracos to seven. These are for the South South, North West and South West.