The Federal Government is considering setting up new guidelines to adequately regulate the granting of Right-of-Way (RoW) to telecoms operators that will allow easy deployment of telecommunications infrastructure across the country so as to ensure universal access to all Nigerians.
The collaboration and consultations between the Ministry of Communication Technology and the Ministry Works is a reflection of the consideration of harnessing agencies’ role in developing the new guidelines for telecoms operators and fibre optic carriers in the country.
Currently, undersea cables from Main One, Glo 1 and other international carrier underway such as the West African cable System of MTN are laying waste without relevant infrastructure to deploy their capacities to the advantage of the country to have smooth flow of internet penetration.
Right of Way is the right given to telecoms companies to dig the ground for laying their fibre cables across the length and breadth of the country.
Often laid along the road side, it is believed that if access to any of these infrastructure elements is denied or is subject to onerous or restrictive conditions too prohibitive to lay the cables, competition will be impaired and customers may be denied a full choice of service providers and services.
Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, announced the new move during an Information and Communication Technology forum in Lagos.
She said the move had become necessary with a view to removing obstacles facing operators in getting RoW when deploying their infrastructure and the need to ensure protection of such cables.
She said, “We have been in consultations with the Ministry of Works that will shortly be issuing guidelines to regulate, guide and govern the grants of right of way to ICT service providers for laying communications cables which should help in addressing many of the issue that plague the laying of fibre optic cables.”
Johnson also noted that the ministry was commencing the same process with the Ministry of Environment and National Environmental Standard and Regulation Enforcement Agency “to significantly de-bottleneck the process for erecting base stations.”