THE Federal Government might need about $795 million (N125.6 billion) to ring the entire country’s states capitals in its quest for broadband deployment.

This estimate is contained in the 109-page document titled: Nigeria’s National Broadband Plan 2013-2018 released by the Presidential Committee on Broadband to President Goodluck Jonathan.

A copy of the document obtained by The Guardian at the weekend revealed that the $795 million could double as a result of other additional costs including Right of Way (ROW) and project administration costs.

Specifically, the Presidential Committee on Broadband, which has former Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe as chairman and co-chaired by the founder of Visafone Communications Limited, Mr. Jim Ovia noted that for Nigeria to become one of the world’s leading economies by year 2020, high-speed broadband networks that will provide every Nigerian with fast, reliable and affordable internet access is a fundamental requirement.

According to the committee, which took about six months to prepare the report, broadband has been variously described as a transformative technology that levels the playing field and gives businesses access to regional, national, and international markets irrespective of geographical location, stressing that Mr. President’s goal in this plan is to produce a strategy and realistic roadmap that will make affordable broadband accessible to all Nigerians within the shortest possible time frame.

The huge success of digital mobile services, the committee described as a great platform upon which to build a national broadband strategy in the country.

The Ndukwe-led committee disclosed that the Federal Government’s position is that pervasive broadband services are in the best interest of the nation and no effort should be spared to reach all the currently unserved or underserved areas, adding that for improved access to infrastructure, the private sector must open up access to existing infrastructure including transmission networks and fibre ducts to enable more rapid cross country delivery of services.

This, the committee said must be done with transparent cost-based pricing, which can be implemented immediately with all future network deployments operating under the same principle.

In calculating the funding requirements, the committee assumed that long distance fibre already exists and states need rings essentially to connect to this long distance fibre.

Also that within states, state capitals and major cities, there is need for Metro Fibre networks built and integrated.

According to them, the cost of building fibre within cities is estimated at $60, 000 per kilometre while the cost of building fibre around states is estimated at $20, 000 per kilometer, stressing that this difference can be attributed to the higher number of civil works, road crossings and restoration that will be required for Metro Fibre networks.

With six geo-political zones identified in the country, the respective states were broken down by land mass into large, medium and small, which to the committee requires an approximated fibre network of 750km, 500km and 250km respectively.

Specifically, the zones were broken down into large states (750km): Bauchi, Borno, Taraba, Adamawa, Yobe, Zamfara, Niger and Kaduna. The medium states (500km) includes Sokoto, Kebbi, Katsina, Jigawa, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Plateau, Oyo, Edo, Ogun, Cross River, Kano, Delta, Nassarawa and Gombe, while small states of 250km have Lagos, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Anambra, Imo, Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Bayelsa.