Policy, CISCO, Dr. Robert Pepper, in this
interview with EVEREST AMAEFULE, says
rolling out Internet Exchange Points is
one of the tools for driving down the
cost of Internet connectivity in the
country
What is the role of CISCO in the
Alliance for Affordable Internet?
We were there at the very beginning of
the conversation with other companies
and the governments to create the
alliance. So we were one of the
founding participants to create the
Alliance for Affordable Internet. We
work with the advisory committee for
the alliance. Part of the alliance agenda
is a research track. There are many
things we need to understand about the
best practices. What are countries doing
that appear to be working? We will have
countries to share the best practices so
that we can actually bring down the cost
of the Internet everywhere. This is in
brief how we have helped to found the
Alliance for Affordable Internet and we
are actively engaged in the
development of the agenda.
When you say affordable Internet; what
exactly do you mean? What is
affordable?
This is one of the biggest issues we
looked at as part of the United Nations'
Commission for Broadband. We decided
as part of the UN broadband
commission's goal (which is broadband
everywhere) to have the price of
broadband in not more than five per
cent of the average monthly income of a
household. Why that? It is because we
have looked across the world; what is
affordable is not a single number
because different economies have
different levels of income. So if you
take a number that may affordable in
Europe, it may still be extremely high in
Nigeria. This is looking at it as a
percentage of a household's monthly
income and we looked at five per cent
as the threshold. The average in
developed countries is 1.7 per cent of
average household income. In some of
the countries in Africa, the average is 15
per cent to 30 per cent. That is not
affordable. So the goal is bringing down
the price to no more than five per cent
of the monthly household income.
In the United Nations, we have had
some success where we have seen
some of those numbers declining in
some countries. In every year, more
countries have come within the five per
cent. The other thing that is encouraging
is that more countries are coming below
10 per cent range. So we are on the
right track but we are not yet there.
What is the number for Nigeria?
We have to go back and look at that. I
don't have it off hand. I don't
remember, honestly. The UN
commission actually publishes those
numbers.
What is CISCO doing specifically in
Nigeria to reduce the cost of Internet
connection?
For many years, we have been working
with both the Nigerian Communications
Commission and the Ministry of
Communications Technology. We are
quite lucky that the NCC for many years
has had a policy of competition. One of
the things that we know is that
competition brings down prices. If you
look at decisions that have been made
over the last decade in Nigeria
especially with the granting of licences
to GSM operators and if you look at the
adoption of mobile versus fixed lines;
there has been a huge growth. The next
step to that will be spectrum for 3G and
spectrum for 4G. NCC is working on
that. Separately, government and the
ministry as well as the NCC have had a
very significant impact in bringing in
more undersea cables to Nigeria. You
remember not long ago, the price to
connect backbone was extremely high.
As at now, Nigeria is one of the
countries in Africa that have the most
undersea cable connections – some of
the best bandwidth from the undersea
cables in Africa are in Nigeria. These
were some of the decisions that came
from the government to open up and
provide access to the landing stations.
Those are decisions that came from
conversations that we have had for
many years with the regulators and
policy makers and government in
Nigeria. There are still more to be done
and we are discussing with NCC and
Minister Johnson. How do we now get
broadband to the rural areas? Having
broadband in rural areas, we can then
begin to talk about how we drive down
the cost. First, there needs to be
investment to extend connection. That
is the only way we are going to serve
underserved communities. The primary
way that this is going to happen is
working with service providers.
We have actually been working with
service providers to be able to extend
connection. As we have said earlier,
bandwidth cost has now crashed as a
result of the four undersea cables that
we now have in the country. The next
thing that needs to be sorted out is the
issue of last mile. In some remote
places, there is no Internet connectivity
but I do know that part of the
broadband policy of the nation is
bringing Internet connectivity to all the
nooks and crannies of the country.
Why have you taken Ghana and Nigeria
as reference points in your studies?
The reason is that both Nigeria and
Ghana earlier than other countries in
the region had policies to promote
mobile; opening up cable landing
stations; bringing in fibre from the rest
of the world plus the fact that both
countries, especially Nigeria, are growing
economies. Nigeria is a youthful
country. If you look at the
demographics, countries that have a
large population of young people with
university education; these are the
economies that are growing and that are
going to be leaders in their region. If
you look at 170 million people in
Nigeria; the Gross Domestic Product
growth opportunities are enormous. The
opportunities for Nigeria are really
limitless. So it is a great opportunity.
Nigeria had also been a country in the
past that had been forward looking
when it comes to technology.
What is the latest development on the
problem of last mile connectivity in
Nigeria?
It is s decision that government has to
make. What are the benefits that
Nigeria has to get from Internet
connectivity? We have better access to
education and we have better access to
healthcare. Yes, people have invested to
bring undersea cable to Nigeria; and
from a wholesale angle we have seen
the price of broadband access come
down significantly. The challenge is: now
that the cables have landed in Lagos,
how do we move the bandwidth to
other parts of the country? Who is going
to bear the cost to get it there? We now
have to look at the risks and rewards
because assuming somebody bears the
cost, what is the immediate impact on
the population? We have 170 million
people. Over 70 per cent of the
population is below 30 years. So really
we have a young vibrant population that
even in remote parts of the country that
can have better access to education.
This means we can be a force to be
reckoned with. Nothing says the country
cannot grow faster than it is doing now.
Part of the things that can push for that
growth is how fast we can push Internet
from the city to the remote areas.
Part of the problem is the middle layer.
Even when you are able to push the
backbone from Lagos to Abuja, you still
have the problem of how you are going
to push from the city to the small towns
around the second and third tier towns
and then to the villages. Everybody
recognises that is the way we have to
go. We have had conversation with both
NCC and the ministry. They totally
understand that and so the question is:
do wehave those core networks to
extending all the way up all the benefits
get to the people. Another very
important thing that can be done to
begin to lower the cost is rolling out
Internet exchange points. Internet
exchange points where different
Internet service providers connect to
each other actually helpbecause they
lower the cost of going from one
network to another network.
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