Internet Access and Digital Divide-Nigeria Victor CHUKWUMA, Department of Physics, Olabisi Onabanjo University, PO Box 351, Ago- Iwoye Ogun State, NIGERIA Tel: , 1

Aim It’s the purpose of this presentation to Show the history and the status of internet penetration in Nigeria and highlight the challenges faced by Nigerian Universities. Suggest ways to influence sustainable outcomes in internet penetration in Nigerian tertiary institutions. 2

Global Internet Penetration 3

Global internet Penetration 4

Global Internet Penetration 5

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African Internet Penetration 7

Internet Penetration in Nigeria 8

Internet Penetration in Nigeria: SAT-3/WASC or South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable 9

Reasons for the increase in Internet Penetration in Nigeria: Submarine Cable Systems- Private Sector Participation Main OneGlo-1 10

Reasons for the increase in Internet Penetration in Nigeria: MTNN’s National microwave and fibre optic transmission network 11

Reasons for the increase in Internet Penetration in Nigeria: Airtel’s GPRS & EDGE National Coverage 12

Reasons for the increase in Internet Penetration in Nigeria: Reduction in Cost of Usage 13

Internet Penetration in Nigeria: Internet Providers’ Networks MTNN’s backbone transmission infrastructure consists of over 7,000 Km of microwave link and fibre optics cable. Globacom and Zain have their networks The networks connects nearly all University towns. Main Street Technologies: 7,000 kilometres Main-One Cable System run from Portugal to Nigeria with branches to the Canary Islands, Morocco, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. The cable will deliver 1.92Tbps of bandwidth, equivalent to 10 times the available capacity of the existing fibre optic cable serving the west coast of Africa. Main-One offers about 200 times the satellite capacity currently available across sub-Saharan Africa, would operate on an open-access basis to telecoms, Internet and data providers in West Africa 14

Internet Penetration in Nigeria: The Needful Despite the observed increase in penetration we are still confronted with the problem of cyber infrastructure and bandwidth for Universities and Research Institutes; these institutions are left to market forces. Bandwidth cost for Nigeria universities are 50 times or more higher than for universities in developed countries. As a solution, Nigerian scientists should through eGYAfrica and Nigerian NREN, initiate solution-oriented projects with identifiable goals which Corporate organisations/Government can buy-in creating synergy. NigREN can leverage on the existing infrastructure, like colleagues in Argentina did, of the service providers. Boubakar et al(2008) recommended policy advocacy, collaboration between Institutions and formation of partnership between institution and Internet Services Providers Thank You 15