Expert proffers solution to bring down data cost in Nigeria

About $1billion (N305billion) is estimated to be spent annually on the Nigerian domestic Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) market, by both the public and the private sector, but less than two percent of this goes to local entities.

Outsourcing is a practice used by different companies to reduce costs by transferring portions of work to outside suppliers rather than completing it internally.

The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Dr Isa Ibrahim, noted that with such huge spend, BPO activities have the potential to contribute to pulling Nigeria out of the current challenges.


He added that with articulate planning and coordination by government, and effective participation by ITECs, significant progress can be made for Nigeria to share from the billions of dollars in the global outsourcing business.
This comes as the Chairman, Nigerian Association of Information Technology Enabled Outsourcing Companies, (NAITEOC), David Onu, proffered ways to crash data cost in the country.

Speaking at the annual conference of the association in Abuja, Monday, Onu said the cost of bandwidth in the country will crash if users connected to the different networks already in Nigeria in different data centres can localise the contents.

He noted that the cost of data is very high in Nigeria, adding that the reason the use of internet is expensive in the country is because most are using the data for either social media or email.

He said: “The social media accounts for about 60 percent and then email and the rest. Most of the emails are accessed servers outside Nigeria. It is just the same way you are in Abuja, and you want to send a mail to your friend in Abuja, but it has to go through the United States, US, or France first. That means you entered a plane to France and came back.

“But if the content is local, that is if we have tier-four data centres where the Google, Yahoo and the rest can reside their content locally, there is enough fibre already laid in the country.”

He continued: “For you to drive on the road, the road has to be accessible to you and affordable. Other countries of the world have made bandwidth available, affordable and sustainable, and we can do the same in Nigeria. It is just about being more intentional about it. The internet itself is as useful as the applications that run on it. Because we don’t have enough of internet applications running on it, so in a way, I can see what the operators are saying because the traffic that should run on it that will help them aggregate their cost are not there. So we advocate that more content should be put on the internet; we must start the localisation of contents.”

Onu stressed the need to build teir-3, and tier-4 data centres and address issues of security, redundancy and anything that would pose a danger for data to enable foreign content providers localise their contents. “Once they discover that you have these things in place, they will bring their content.”

According to him, “The internet millionaires and billionaires are not those who created the connectivity, it is those who have the applications like the Facebook and the Twitter so the more we can have contents, applications, that is where the value chain resides.”

He also stressed the need for partnership between government and the private sector and creating synergy to encourage the development of ICT infrastructure.

Source: http://m.guardian.ng/business-services/nigeria-spends-1-billion-on-outsourcing-yearly/

Cc:lalasticlala, Seun, puskin, dominique, naijacutee, FOD, Mynd44, OAM4J, DisGuy, justwise, HumbledbYGrace, mukina2, osystein

Wow am ahead this time

Noted

Ok o...

Sad

Lemme buy one plot of land here

Hmmmmmm.first?

so sad we can't trust our pool of talents... expatriates milking our economy, and we are shouting unemployment... How will these things change sef

austinmist:
Lemme buy one plot of land here

u beat me to it

So sad!

.

Funny enough the jobs being outsourced can be perfectly done by Nigerians. It baffles me how many job has gone out due to the mentality that if it's from abroad then it is the best.
That being said, make dem leave the data price for where e dey abeg...

Ah don't even know what dey are talking about...let me just purchase dis plot...and wait for the pipo who knows

Lets watch and see

Lemme purchase this Land

Outsourced to cut cost, eventually get laid off.

Nigeria Telecom operators are scammers, yet they make their millions per minute.

And for the levy collecting, rather than policy regulating NCC, reduce cost of bandwidth, not increase price of data, to new operators so as to give them a starting advantage.

The masses do not have to suffer your regulated miscalculations.

However, setting up a tier-four data center is the key. We have a large number of Internet penetration in this part of Africa. Let the NCC, in conjunction with ministry of Communication Technology do the needful, not just billing. Getting tired of mallams heading parastatals

All these useless comments .Do you even read

oh Lawd, i kant believe this


people dey fine job internally, dem dey do outsourcing, tor

except they need people with specific skills hence the outsourcing, but this companies can always train peeps na, after training, u used em, instead of outsourcing everytime kwanu

or am i missing something

And how then do we expect the economy to improve?

If the reasons for spending are justifiable with attendant positive results, no problem.

No useful contributions or comment from our intellectuals who call people illiterates. Mushroom analyst. This is not Linda Ikeji bought a bag or Davido baby mama dress nude or a woman raped in Kenya. Rubbish idlers.

nigeria is backward tech wise, we lack professional hardware and software integration to bring this required infrastructure. Even cert for database and Web verification we no get. Quickteller for example uses US security tryst online siggy for verification likewise fb et AL. Seriously, it's time our government and legislators think beyond stomach infrastructure and make a blue print on Tech And Data centers.

Omo, hope I don't buy land wey dem don already pay for here ooo. Cos many people don already buy. Well make I just lease shaa.

Outsourcing is Good, it creates a level ground for our local businesses/industries to increase their services, no time for I sabi you business, I will rather outsource my project/business to a foreign reputable firm than give a local who will do nothing but jump from hanger to pole with my project

Noted

shevchenko:
All these useless comments .Do you even read

Obviously not.

eddiebruk:
Outsourcing is Good, it creates a level ground for our local businesses/industries to increase their services, no time for I sabi you business, I will rather outsource my project/business to a foreign reputable firm than give a local who will do nothing but jump from hanger to pole with my project

Clap for your self bro. Just like Indians are in India making money from the shores of Nigeria, while the same Nigerians are jobless.

You have no idea, do you?

Capital flight will only continue to worsen the situation. The government need to strike a balance in this regard.

ALL WAT D MAN SAID R GOOD, BUT IS DER ENOUGH POLITICAL WILL 2 EVEN ACHIEVE DIS?. PPLE DAT SHOULD CREATE D ENABLING ENVIRONMENT 4 SUCH DEVELOPMENTS 2 BE ACHIEVED R MORE EVIL THAN D DEVIL HIMSELF. SITE SUCH LOCAL CONTENT AT IMO STATE, N SOME WILL ASK Y SHOULD IT BE SITED IN IGBOLAND, MIDDLE BELT. DEVELOPMENT STARTS FROM WITHIN, AT D MOMENT NIGERIANS R NOT INTERESTED.