{"id":15627,"date":"2012-10-17T06:02:26","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T04:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/10\/nigeria-to-award-fixed-telecom-licences-early-next-year\/"},"modified":"2012-10-17T06:02:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T04:02:26","slug":"nigeria-to-award-fixed-telecom-licences-early-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/nigeria-to-award-fixed-telecom-licences-early-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria to award fixed telecom licences early next year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Matt Smith<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">DUBAI<\/span> Oct 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria will award new licences to<br \/>\nprovide fixed-line internet services early next year as Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\nmost populous country aims to transform its underdeveloped and<br \/>\nunreliable network.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Nigeria is forecast to have 120 million mobile subscribers<br \/>\nby 2013-end, out of a population of 170 million, but its<br \/>\ninternet network is undeveloped. The West African country had<br \/>\n216,000 fixed broadband connections in 2011, according to data<br \/>\nfrom the International Telecommunications Union.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Fixed-line licences will be sold via an auction, whereby<br \/>\nwinning bidders will be those requesting the lowest government<br \/>\nsubsidies to build the network, Eugene Juwah, chief executive of<br \/>\nthe Nigerian Communications Commission, told Reuters on the<br \/>\nsidelines of a conference in Dubai.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The government wants to put in an incentive to bring the<br \/>\nprice down,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Fixed line will be divided into three tranches. The first<br \/>\ntwo will be to operate the electrical and non-electrical<br \/>\ninfrastructure, while the third will be for licences to sell<br \/>\nservices to end users. All will be sold on a regional basis.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The licence sales come as the regulator considers whether it<br \/>\nshould again punish mobile firms for their poor service.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In May, it fined four operators &#8211; Etisalat Nigeria, a unit<br \/>\nof United Arab Emirates&#8217; Etisalat, Airtel Nigeria<br \/>\n, Globacom and MTN Nigeria, a unit of South&#8217;s Africa&#8217;s<br \/>\nMTN &#8211; a total of 1.17 billion naira ($7.3 million)<br \/>\nafter missing targets they said were unfair.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have a gentlemen&#8217;s agreement that no fines will be<br \/>\nissued until December, so they&#8217;ve more than six months to make<br \/>\nthe necessary investments to improve the network,&#8221; said Juwah.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Matt Smith DUBAI Oct 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Nigeria will award new licences to provide fixed-line internet services early next year as Africa&#8217;s most populous country aims to transform its underdeveloped and unreliable network. Nigeria is forecast to have 120 million mobile subscribers by 2013-end, out of a population of 170 million, but its internet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-15627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}