400 govt agencies now connected to Internet – Minister
Over 400 federal ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) now have access to the Internet, according to communications minister, Adebayo Shittu.
He gave this scorecard at a recent technology forum, adding that the growth in Internet access in government underscores moves to improve the delivery of public sector services using technology.
The government, Shittu said, has provided internet access to about 400 MDAs, over 11,000 nodes of Wireless Local Area Network (LAN) to all MDAs at the Federal Secretariat, and over 40,000 email addresses for government officials under the gov.ng and mil.ng domains.
This has ensured that government data is hosted locally on a secured website with data backup to MDAs and 200 servers hosting 94 MDAs.
“Following its success in conceptualizing I-Gov.ng, the government is now focusing on cost savings in service delivery and leveraging economies of scale by prioritizing services that have a direct bearing on the administration’s’ priorities and classifying them as shared services to be provisioned from the national shared service centre (NSSC), he said.
He added that government is also continuing its partnership with the South Korean government for the successful implementation of the e-government master plan.
The e -Government master plan 2020 developed by the Ministry of Communications, he said, is designed as an essential blueprint of modalities and protocols for the adoption of e-government best practice across the Federal Civil Service.
He explained further that there is a positive increase in the number of active telecom subscribers with an increase from 148.70million in August 2015 to 152.28million as at August 2016, an increase of 5.9 percent.
Accordingly, the teledensity rose from 107.67 percent in August 2015 to 109.14 percent in August 2016 thus recording an increase of 1.47 percent.
He disclosed that the foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector has increased from $32 billion in 2015 to $38 billion in 2016. Broadband penetration has reached 20.95 percent, while the percentage of internet penetration has reached a milestone of 47.44 percent making Nigeria second to South Africa in the continent.
“Government has licensed six slots of 2.6 MHz spectrum for deployment of 4G-LTE services. In the same vein, processes have commenced for the licensing of broadband services on the 5.4GHz spectrum band and the allocation of 70/80 GHz band (E-Band).
Furthermore, approval has been granted for the deployment of 4G Long Term Evolution Technology by NATCOM Development and Investment Limited to launch the first VOLTE Call.
He disclosed that government intends to secure latest mobile equipment that will be deployed to enforce compliance and also enable the detection, location, and blocking of illegal users of spectrum.
