LAGOS: Nigeria's telecommunications regulator said on Monday that it hopes to increase the number of subscribers to its fixed-line licenses in the next year as an effort to boost broadband Internet services in the country. Speaking to Bloomberg news agency, Eugene Juwah, the Nigerian Communications Commission chief executive officer, said that fixed-lines are key to boosting the country's Internet capacity. “The licenses will be issued to revive the fixed-line telecommunication services that have been comatose and will benefit our broadband initiative,” Eugene Juwah, chief executive officer of Nigerian Communications Commission, said yesterday in an interview in Lagos, the commercial capital. The agency wants to provide the “enabling environment” for private investors to expand the country's broadband infrastructure, he said. As Africa's largest country with a population of more than 160 million, Nigeria has seen its number of telephone users increase dramatically over the past decade, from less than one million in 2000 to more than 90 million through the end of last year, according to data published by the NCC. Fixed-line telephone users make up less than one percent of the total number, leaving room for growth in broadband communication as demand increases for data services, the NCC chief said. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/Yl3hM Tags: Internet, Nigeria, Telecom Section: Tech, West Africa
