The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been a game-changer in 2024, reaffirming its commitment to Nigerian subscribers and the telecom industry. Addressing recent speculations about a tariff hike, the Commission has reassured Nigerians that they remain at the heart of its decisions.
This year, the NCC has taken bold steps to ensure that subscribers enjoy improved services and better protection. For instance, it mandated telecom providers to resolve customer complaints within 30 minutes at service centers, saving subscribers time and enhancing their overall experience.
The Commission has also been instrumental in expanding broadband access across the country. With its drive to achieve 70% broadband penetration by 2025, millions of Nigerians now have better access to affordable and reliable internet, creating opportunities for businesses, education, and social inclusion.
One of the standout achievements this year has been the NCC’s efforts to promote digital inclusion. Through partnerships and campaigns, the Commission has brought internet services to underserved communities, giving more Nigerians a chance to participate in the digital economy.
Cybersecurity has also been a top priority. With the increasing reliance on digital platforms, the NCC introduced stronger measures to protect subscribers from online threats, ensuring that the digital space remains safe for all users.
Economically, the NCC has created a vibrant environment for growth. By fostering competition and attracting new investments, it has helped reduce costs for subscribers while keeping the industry robust and innovative.
In response to rumors of tariff hikes, the NCC has reassured Nigerians that any decisions about tariffs will be transparent and in line with the realities of the economy. The Commission encourages subscribers to ignore unverified information and trust in its dedication to their welfare.
As the year progresses, the NCC continues to prove that it is not just a regulator but a partner to Nigerians, ensuring that the telecom sector remains dynamic, inclusive, and subscriber-focused.
In a bold step towards strengthening Nigeria’s internet security landscape, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is set to host a groundbreaking webinar on Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC). This free virtual event, designed to enlighten stakeholders on the critical role of DNSSEC in safeguarding internet infrastructure, is scheduled for Thursday, December 12, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. WAT.
The NCC, in a notice published on its verified social media platforms on December 9, 2024, revealed that the session is being organized in collaboration with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a global organization dedicated to ensuring a secure, stable, and unified internet.
Why This Matters
As the internet continues to drive Nigeria’s digital economy, cyber threats have become a growing concern. The DNSSEC protocol, an essential tool for enhancing internet security, prevents malicious activities such as domain hijacking and data breaches. This webinar is part of the NCC’s broader mission to create a safer and more resilient internet environment for Nigerians.
“The objective of this webinar is to promote DNSSEC validation and ensure that by the first quarter of 2025, Nigeria achieves at least a 50% DNSSEC validation rate,” the NCC stated. “We are committed to ensuring increased awareness of DNSSEC by the end of this year.”
Meet the Speakers
The event will feature a lineup of distinguished experts who will shed light on the practical implementation and benefits of DNSSEC:
Babagana Digima, Head of New Media and Information Security at NCC, will provide insights into NCC’s ongoing efforts to bolster cybersecurity in Nigeria.
Dr. Ibiso Kingsley-George, Head of the Internet Governance Unit at NCC, will discuss the policy framework and the global significance of DNSSEC.
Yazid Akanho, Technical Engagement Manager for the Middle East and Africa at ICANN, will bring an international perspective on DNSSEC adoption and its impact across the region.
How to Participate
The NCC has extended an open invitation to industry professionals, academics, IT enthusiasts, and the general public to join this informative session. Registration details are available via the link: https://bit.ly/DNSSECWebinarReg.
This webinar reflects the NCC’s proactive approach to equipping Nigeria’s digital ecosystem with the tools and knowledge needed to combat cyber threats. By collaborating with ICANN, the Commission aims to position Nigeria as a leader in internet security practices across Africa.
For participants, this is more than just a webinar—it’s an opportunity to contribute to the nation’s journey toward a safer, more secure digital future.
A combination of cable cuts, resulting in equipment faults on the major undersea cables along the West African Coast, have negatively impacted data and fixed telecom services in several countries of West Africa, including Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cote de Ivoire, among others.
The cuts occurred somewhere in Cote de’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.
Cable companies – West African Cable System (WACS) and African Coast to Europe (ACE) in the West Coast route from Europe have experienced faults while SAT3 and MainOne have downtime.
Similar undersea cables providing traffic from Europe to the East Coast of Africa, like Seacom, Europe India Gateway (EIG), Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE1), are said to have been cut at some point around the Red Sea, resulting in degradation of services across on these routes.
In Nigeria and other West African countries, Internet access and speed have experienced disruptions in the networks of service providers in the affected countries.
Operators of these cables have commenced repairs already, and services are gradually being restored.
They have promised to work round the clock to ensure that services are restored to the affected countries within the shortest possible time.
It is important to bring this information to the knowledge of corporate and individual consumers on these services.
How do you get staff on board with security? By making it personal, says Kevin Halkerd, Senior Risk & Security Analyst at e4.
Most successful cyber breaches have one thing in common: People. Your company can be protected from every tech angle, with the latest security updates and most advanced threat detection, but it takes just one employee accidentally sharing their password for a major breach to occur.
Human-targeted attacks will remain the number one threat to cyber security and will only keep increasing in volume and complexity this year. As even casual observers have become more adept at spotting emails that don’t look quite right, criminals constantly work at creating more sophisticated traps. This year, we’ll likely see more complex attacks as well as automation and the monetisation thereof, as bad actors leverage and repurpose the likes of ChatGPT and other AI chat tools.
Human error is not only the biggest security blind spot, but also requires more effort to remediate. It necessitates training and buy-in, as opposed to a security threat you might patch or reconfigure to a more secure mode. And after all that, your security still depends on the will of those humans to engage with the training and execute the learnings. There are no quick solutions, and any solution in place requires constant reviewing, reengagement, and reporting.
So how do you get staff members to engage in security messaging and implement these instructions correctly? By making it personal for and applicable to them.
South Africa already has a security-first culture due to our sensitivity to crime in general. Your toughest challenge is then to broaden the scope of staff members’ security mindset.
Do this by always providing consistent, friendly, and supportive engagement on security topics. If your security team can add value to other staff members’ lives, whether through support, personal advice, or leading by example, these quality exchanges will become a foundation for further interaction. If staff members perceive that they, too, get value out of engaging with security teams and materials, they’ll be more inclined to adopt your overall organisational strategy and awareness mission.
You could tailor such initiatives by:
Using strong awareness content about the threats most prevalent in your business to regularly keep security in focus.
Adding additional customised content to such materials to dig deeper and create interest in current trends.
Sharing ‘inside info’ such as vulnerability notices and remediation steps for consumer phones, tablets, and wireless routers that staff members may use in their personal lives.
Running routine unannounced simulations and sharing the results with the group.
Incentivising participation by rewarding star performers – but still supporting stragglers.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, has approved with immediate effect, the appointment of Engineer Tukur Mohammed Lawal Funtua, as the new Managing Director of Nigeria Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT), following the retirement of the erstwhile Managing Director, Dr Abimbola Alale.
Engineer Tukur Mohammed Lawal Funtua, born on 24th November 1966 is an indigene of Funtua Local Government Area of Katsina State, Northwest Nigeria. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, PGDM, MBA, a Professional Diploma in Education and a PhD in Environmental and Sustainable Development Management in view, at the University of Port Harcourt. He was before his appointment, Director, health community affairs, safety and environment with BUA Cement Plc, served in various capacities including Health and Safety Manager, Country HSE Manager and Regional Manager for Communications, Public Affairs and Sustainable Development at Lafarge Africa Plc and Group Head, Environment and Community Affairs at Dangote Cement Plc among others.
Engineer Tukur, who has thirty years professional experience in manufacturing, process engineering, health, production, safety and environmental management, communications and various other fields, is a Chartered Environmentalist at the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Pollution Mitigation, a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers, and the Professional Leadership Practitioners Institute. He is a Registered Engineer with the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), a member of numerous professional bodies and institutes. Engineer Tukur is an author and is married with children.
Recall that the Nigeria Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT) falls under the purview of the Honourable Minister of Communications and Digital Economy.
AMS-IX (www.AMS-IX.net), one of the largest Internet Exchange operators in the world, and MainData Nigeria Limited (MDXi) (www.MDX-i.com), an Equinix (www.EQUINIX.com) company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to operate and grow Internet Exchange services in Africa.
AMS-IX will be setting up an internet exchange at MDXi, the carrier-neutral Data Center of MainOne (www.MainOne.net) in Lagos Nigeria. MDXi will act as AMS-IX strategic partner and reseller for AMS-IX in West Africa.
Lagos is the ideal location to serve as a content hub for West and Central Africa as it is strategically located in a fast-developing region
This strategic partnership between AMS-IX and MDXi will deliver improved interconnection capabilities for existing and new customers on the exchange, further facilitating the distribution of content into the West African region. With this partnership, content delivery networks, application providers, and hosting companies will now be able to exchange internet traffic locally through the rich interconnected ecosystem of networks, large enterprises, and cloud service providers, and network operators available at MDXi.
International Partnership Director Onno Bos of AMS-IX: “Lagos is the ideal location to serve as a content hub for West and Central Africa as it is strategically located in a fast-developing region with landing sites for international subsea cables connecting Africa to EMEA and beyond. We’re thrilled to work with such a strong partner as MainOne to expand this vibrant connectivity community.”
Oluwasayo Oshadami, GM, Technical Solutions, MainOne, “We’re excited to work with AMS-IX. AMS-IX has over 25 years of experience building, operating and growing Internet Exchanges all over the world. This partnership is an important step in realizing our long-term strategy to become a leading carrier-neutral digital infrastructure company by bringing a full range of transformative technologies to Africa.”
MDXi and AMS-IX are committed to developing Lagos into a regional content hub that services users all over West and Central Africa. The partners intend to seek alliances to connect with local telecom operators and IX’s to help develop and support local ecosystems.
With the new academic year now in full swing, children and students across South Africa will be sitting down at their computers to study, complete their coursework, and possibly even write exams online. This is an exciting time, but it is also fraught with worry as digital distractions are rife.
As parents, guardians, and caregivers, it is important to provide the necessary guard rails to ensure that while technology remains an important educational tool, children do not lose focus on their studies, or worse, fall victim to cyber-threats and bullying at this crucial time.
The internet, smart phones and tablets have become an essential part of our daily lives. The same is true for our kids. Estimates suggest kids and teens between the ages of 8 to 18 spend about 44.5 hours each week in front of digital screens. When used well, digital devices and the internet are powerful educational tools and can inspire a love of learning. Younger people are also more vulnerable to various cyber threats which is why protecting digital progress is so important. The international Safer Internet Day, which takes place every year on 8 February, highlights the need for greater awareness and action to ensure the internet is a better and safer place for all. Parents need to ensure that children are equipped to do the best that they can do, but how do they do it? How do you protect kids from trolls and the cyber-bullies when they need technology for study and research purposes?
A sensible approach starts with creating a healthy environment that encourages exploration, but with clear boundaries. Clearly, our reliance on technology isn’t going to diminish, but there are ways we can all become better at managing it. Managing technology with intelligence has never been more crucial. Which is why protecting technological progress is at the very centre of the ESET ethos.
Digital distractions
What might seem harmless at first glance; studying while watching TV, texting, or checking social media, can impair learning and result in lower exam scores.
A study conducted by Dr Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University showed that 80% of high school students surveyed reported frequently switching between studying and technology. The same survey showed a direct correlation between digital distractions and a decline in marks.
Disconnecting devices is not a solution, but limiting what sites, services and platforms can be accessed is. If we want students to learn and perform at their best, smart phones and other online distractions must be managed.
The benefits of removing distractions while studying are almost incalculable. Most students incorrectly believe that they can perform two challenging tasks at the same time. They may like to do it, they may even be addicted to it, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task at a time.
One method of controlling access to digital technology is to physically remove it and allow for periods throughout the day when it can be used. Research suggests children study most effectively for around 45 minutes. It’s important that those precious minutes are productive and free of distractions. Welcome breaks can then be used for quick updates and catch ups, but a relatively strict routine needs to be adhered to. It’s too easy to get lost in Reels and TikToks beyond the allocated time.
Parents should also make use of a decent internet security platform, which should be a prerequisite on mobile phones and laptop computers anyway. ESET’s own Internet Security solution allows for screen and browsing limits to be set in place and allows parents to manage the access from their phone.
The solution ensures that students can focus on what they need to start the school year on the right foot but continue healthy habits for safe online behaviour right up until exams.
With other cyber threats like identity theft, malware attacks and the potential loss of any data stored on a device should it be stolen or hacked, it is imperative that any device connected to the internet have suitable security protection.
Guiding children through constant technological change is hard enough as it is, which is why using tech to your advantage wherever possible is an absolute must. It’s safe to say your kids will thank you for it in the end.
As an Internet Service Provider (ISP), do you think that internet services are overpriced in Nigeria?
The Internet Services space in Nigeria in my opinion is fairly priced, considering the environmental and economic challenges we have to endure – lack of stable electricity, frequent vandalization of fiber-lay path, unstable exchange rate, multiple taxations from Local level to Federal level and so much more.
These challenges are experienced by most businesses in-country and Service Providers are offering to their subscribers to the best of their ability a bouquet of value-add packages that are pocket-friendly. You also need to understand that in this industry, the cost of capacity to Service Providers will always determine the selling price to the end-users if we wish to stay profitable. Internet services can only be fairly-priced to the extent capacity providers push-out and price their bulk capacity to ISPs. Nonetheless, we listened to the market and with the advent of the global pandemic and the remote-working that a lot of businesses have had to adopt since last year, we are fast-tracking on solutions and services that will give businesses peace of mind – one of such is working on a simplified bundled service that allows users (corporate or individual) to enjoy the best of internet, voice-data and video without exhausting their data or paying premium i.e. More Data for Less – thereby ensuring maximum productivity and profitability to businesses in Nigeria.
You have been in business for over 7 years now, started as ISP now diversified into other spheres of IT, how has the journey been?
The journey has been quite interesting, when I look back at our how we gradually diversified by developing our competencies in IT Solutions, and evolved our business model to foster a great relationship through partnership with industry giants; it gives me a high sense of satisfaction at our accomplishments. We cannot understate the challenges that come with these. Our team worked hand-in-glove with these customers to get quality feedback regarding the different services in their environment that were either not working, poorly implemented or needs to be optimized. These and more gave us a good direction that allowed us to embed our unique touch to IT services and solutions offerings. As a business, we have also been able to contribute our quota to the ongoing digital transformation journey in Nigeria, by ensuring that any business can get what they need from a single provider, which ensures full optimization across their IT infrastructure and is cost-effective. The testament of this success is with our customer base that spans across different industries and sectors in Nigeria that trust us. In as much as we acknowledge that the challenges are enormous and constantly evolving, we are determined to stake our claim in this space.
You recently introduced Z-FORCE service, how has it been and how well has it been accepted in Nigeria?
Our Zforce service is unique in its design as it came out at a point where users wanted internet services with both speed and data that they can use while working remotely, void of the frequent intermittencies and high-cost associated with such requests. As you would agree with me, the global pandemic brought with it, different challenges and an uncharted path that a lot of businesses where ill-prepared for; but we saw it as an opportunity to change the way we think and operate, and this meant that we had to look at a product that acts as a best-fit to the need of our clients as well as meet the current demand and market trend. In the area of aftersales support which is always a problem in our environment, we continue to run a 24-hour support service and this has also enhanced the acceptability of Zforce in the market. Currently this service is only available in Lagos, but we are increasing our service coverage to cover at least other major cities and the underserved communities across Nigeria.
What are the unique selling points of Z-FORCE as a product?
Our unique selling point is One product that meets the unique need of every user, Fast installation, High Quality of Service, Fair Pricing and Excellent Customer Turnaround Response Time to mention a few. Z-Force is a hybrid product that serves both the SME market (Home office) and selective mass market – home users, online schooling, ‘entertainment’, etc.
Chris Obasi, The Managing Director, Zeta-Web Nigeria Limited
Tell us about your FibreSat solution and the areas of coverage?
FiberSat is an innovative product that derives its name from a combination of services- Fiber and VSAT, one acts as the primary link while the second is a backup in the instance of service failure. It enables us to provide redundancy/backup with an uptime of 99.98%, compared to the industry uptime of 98%. It means we empower businesses to switch as need be during service disruption without their operations being impacted. FiberSat is available in major cities nationwide.
With Your broadband solution for home use, now that people are working from home, how pricey is it and the speed?
It is cost effective, as we had to invest and work with our partner ecosystem to provide the hardware at no cost or on free lease to our customers. We provide a solution that will meet every customer’s unique requirement.
How can the government create policies that would enable indigenous ISP firms like yours scale?
We need the government to create a sustainable and predictable spectrum allocation regime that makes useful frequency spectrum available at a fair price. They should also properly differentiate the market so that Telcos and ISPs do not overlap, by enacting laws that separate what markets can be serviced by each category of provider. Internet access should be treated as a right of all citizens and as such ISPs should be given tax incentives accordingly – eliminate multiple taxation and include tax reduction on OEMs equipment manufacturing and importation to encourage investors. Protection of our infrastructure and also support us more by ensuring the industry has access to foreign exchange at the official rate. Finally, provision of long-term loans with very minimal interest rates to new and existing ISPs to support their overall operation.
Tell us more about ZETA Business solutions and what segment of market it is designed for?
“Our unique selling point is that we listen to our customers before designing the desired product that meets their specific needs; as we know that the world is evolving and it is no more one product fits all”
As an ICT Solutions Provider, you have various solutions like Data Centre services, structured cabling and switching services etc. how has the market accepted these solutions and what are your unique selling points?
Our unique selling point is that we listen to our customers before designing the desired product that meets their specific needs; as we know that the world is evolving and it is no more one product fits all. Secondly, the market’s methodology about Data Centres and WAN has gone in the Software-defined direction and our portfolio has been robust enough to accommodate this shift in demand. Our range of Structured Cabling and Switching solutions deliver quality throughputs and serve as a solid foundation for data centre services of all kinds. Our flexibility, in-depth professional knowledge and customer-centric approach stands us out in the market.
This is a new year, what are the solutions that Nigerians should expect from you?
Tell us about your Collaboration Services and your Contact Centre Solutions. Are you open to mid-market players?
In the past, Collaboration was assumed to be within an office or one organization. Now, Collaboration has broken boundaries of the typical office network and has reached across all of the Internet and Cloud Infrastructure. Cloud-based collaboration solutions in the form of software as a service (SaaS) is readily available for a wide range of customer type including mid-sized firms. The advantage is that these solutions are scalable and so you can start small and scale up as you grow.
Our Call Centre Solutions are robust and have crossed the boundaries of the basic voice-based call centre and IVRs, to multichannel contact centres that have multiple touchpoints including Social Media and Chat Bots. The need to constantly engage and have successful dialogues with customers and employees as well as putting information on products and services out there without increasing operating cost is one aspect, we are mindful of.
As an IT stakeholder, what is your take on Nigerians hosting and having their data hosted locally, do you think that there are advantages to this?
Nigeria has come a long way from when there were no standard tiered data centres in-country and 100% of Internet content was outside our shores. Now we have a lot of content developers, Intellectual property owners and organisations with content and Internet-based products meant for consumption by the Nigerian market. A good example is the different payment gateways we have now, make room for all of these contents to remain in-country to ensure good application response time and overall better performance of products and services. Also, the content remaining in-country improves the economy, as fees that would otherwise be paid to ferry the traffic outside our shores and host it outside our shores is now paid to local providers; thereby boosting our economy. The main challenge for now is in generating alternative source of energy which is not cost-effective and is currently being used to manage downtime and availability, which is an essential and critical aspect of data hosting.
“Our Z-Force service is unique in its design as it came out at a point where users wanted internet services with both speed and data that they can use while working remotely, void of the frequent intermittencies and high-cost associated with such requests.”
