The number of identified areas of clusters across Nigeria without access to the telecommunications services has been reduced by 53.1 per cent as at the end of 2022.
The executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of the Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, disclosed this at a recent telecoms industry stakeholders forum in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state.
Danbatta, who was represented at the forum by the head, Pre-Licensing at the Commission, Usman Mamman, said from 207 clusters of access gaps in 2013, the industry has witnessed a reduction to 97 as of end 2022 by bridging 110 clusters of access gaps, representing a 53.1 per cent reduction.
He said by implication, the number of Nigerians who fell within the access gap which were estimated at 37 million in 2013 has been reduced to 27 million, following increased access to telecoms services by those hitherto not digitally included.
Access gaps refer to the cluster of communities or grouped areas in different parts of the country that are bereft of access to telecom services and till date, the NCC has reduced clusters of access gap by more than half.
“By 2019, we had succeeded in reducing the clusters of access gaps to 114 through the deployment of the necessary infrastructure needed to bring services to people living in rural, unserved and underserved areas of the country.
The deployment of infrastructure is in terms of base transceiver stations, which resulted in the reduction of Nigerians in those clusters from 37 million to 31 million in 2019.
Source: https://leadership.ng/nigerias-telecom-access-gaps-drop-by-53/