By Juliet Umeh
South Eastern part of Nigeria continues to lag behind in telecom development.
At least, recent data statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics confirmed so.
The Bureau said that in terms of telecommunications development and broadband penetration, the region with five states including Abia, Anambra, Imo, Enugu and Ebonyi, took last in the third quarter of 2023.
In the active voice subscription per zone, NBS disclosed that North Central had 38,470,115, North West – 40,020,788, North East – 26,379,334, South West – 67,585,980, South-South was 26, 924,411 while South East had 22,389,255.
Also on active internet subscription, North Central – 27,813,199, North West – 28,687,940, North East – 18,931,895, South West- 47,559,081, and South-South – 20,002,645 and South East was 15,967,753.
But, this is not even surprising. It has remained the trend over the years.
For instance, in Q1 2022, active voice subscription per zone, North Central – 37,429,197, North West – 37,329,859, North East – 19,379,078, South East – 19,569,496, South West – 56,606,404
South-South – 29, 241, 597.
Also, active internet subscription per zone in Q1 2022 were as follows: North central – 27, 476,820, North West – 26,912,492, North East – 14,142,290, South East- 13,982,821, South West- 41,988,986 and South-South – 21,059,374
The trend is also the same in 2021.
According to NBS, internet usage in Nigeria in quarter 04, 2021 South Eastern Nigeria recorded 13.7 million users, which is the lowest among the states, except North East.
NBS data shows that in the quarter under review, South West region has the highest online users with 41.7 million followed by North Central with 26.6, North West has 25.4 users.
Others are South-South which has 20.8 million internet users and troubled North East which has 13.8 million.
However, many variables are contributing to this poor outcome.
Industry experts and technology analysts are of the opinion that inability of the state governors in the region to eliminate bottlenecks hindering digital access is responsible.
Chief among the issues is the high right of way, RoW charges.
Source: Vanguard