The United States of America through the Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) is partnering with Nigeria's Backbone Connectivity Network (BCN) Limited to bridge broadband access gaps in the country.
This partnership will touch on how cost-effective technology and infrastructure can be deployed to accelerate and surpass the 30 per cent target set in the National Broadband Plan (NBP) of the Federal Government.The announcement was made at a dinner reception held in Lagos, at the weekend in honour of the participants of the November 2017 USTDA Reverse Trade Mission, by U.S Consul General F. John Bray and visiting USTDA Country Manager for Nigeria, Ms. Shannon M. Roe.
USTDA announced the award of a USTDA-funded grant to BCN for the development of a feasibility study and business plan to support the deployment of a broadband fiber network across the North West region of Nigeria including the building of a Tier III data center in Kaduna State.
The Chief Executive Officer of BCN, Ibrahim Dikko, who expressed gratitude to the USTDA team for the grant support, stated that the grant was timely as it coincided with BCN's corporate and broadband infrastructure network expansion programmes.
The feasibility study and business plan being funded by USTDA would cover the assessment of the BCN-led Consortium's plan to build about 10,000 km of fiber linking about 500 Points of Access across all local government areas in the seven North Western States integrated with the Tier III Data and Co-location Centre deployment plan for Kaduna. This is in furtherance of the NBP to increase broadband access in Nigeria from its present 22 per cent to over 30 per cent by end 2018.
BCN is a leading unified data communication service provider that operates a metropolitan broadband network in Abuja and has deployed over 1,000 km of fiber in North Central and North Eastern Nigeria.
BCN has a National Long-Distance Operator License, a National Metropolitan Operator License and an Internet Service Provider License, allowing it to provide client centric data management solutions. The firm provides high capacity scalable internet bandwidth, carrier connectivity services, MPLS solutions to enterprises, data center co-location, cloud-based services and tailor-made data management solutions to clients across the country.
BCN is the lead in the consortium recently awarded the Infraco license for the North West Nigeria by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to build out Fiber Broadband infrastructure across the seven states in the region namely; Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states.
BCN was also selected by the Kaduna State government to build fiber metropolitan broadband communications networks in the three key economic zones of Kaduna, Zaria and Kafanchan respectively including Northern Nigeria's first Tier III Data and Co-location Center in Kaduna town. Dikko further reiterated BCN's commitment to its partnership with USTDA in promoting increased broadband network footprint and Internet penetration in Nigeria for improved socio-economic development across Northern Nigeria in particular and Nigeria in general.