The Gambia government has tasked the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) and MOICI to make sure consumers benefit from the increased bandwidth in the country, through price reduction and improvement in service delivery. Internet Access Here Sign (Photo credit: Steve Rhode)
By Lamin Jahateh
Internet bandwidth in The Gambia has increased significantly as all the internet service providers (ISPs) have multiplied their bandwidth capacity, Nancy Nyang, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Information and Communications Infrastructure has said.
The country’s bandwidth is said to have increased by fourfold since the installation of the African Coast to Europe (ACE) submarine cable, some two years ago.
Speaking at the beginning of the 12th Innovation Africa Digital (IAD) summit on Tuesday in Banjul, PS Nyang pointed out that the government is, however, aware that the increased telecommunications infrastructure has not translated to price reduction and improve quality of ICT services for consumers.
The three-day IAD summit is organized by Extensia Ltd in collaboration with The Gambia government.
Government’s intervention
The Gambia government has tasked the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) and MOICI to make sure consumers benefit from the increased bandwidth in the country, through price reduction and improvement in service delivery.
PS Nancy Nyang said the government is leaving no stone un-turn to make the people of The Gambia benefit from the bandwidth in the country.
In this line, MOICI has developed a regulation for open access to the submarine cable through the support of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
The regulation will provide mechanisms to enable the un-served and under-served people, most especially in the rural areas, to have access to telecommunications and related ICT services.
“This regulations and policies will be available for adoption this year,” PS Nyang said.
Earlier on, the deputy permanent secretary at MOICI, Lamin Camara, said the ministry is still on its toes looking for more viable ways of improving the fiber connectivity within the country to be able to connect the entire nation with a high speed fiber transmission to businesses and end users to exploit the benefits of broadband for enhanced economic growth.
He said it is important that the ministry look at how to exploit the increased internet bandwidth to build the country’s economy and create jobs.
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