By Hillary Asemota
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke, on Tuesday allayed the hitherto negative perception of 5G technology as held in some quarters, even as she urged Nigerians not to exercise any fears and worry over the deployment of the networks across the country.
Following government’s approval for rollout of the technology, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Ibrahim Pantami, has tasked the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to prepare speedy and effective implementation of the national policy.
Fielding questions from ICT Reporters at the sideline of the Digitisation Hangout with Digital Transformation Technical Working Groups (DTTWGs) in Abuja, organized by NITDA, Opeke, expressed hope that the technology will be implemented in compliance with global standard, adding: “We have nothing to worry about.”
On the implication of 5G and the and skepticism surrounding the technology, she said: “I think that we are running a little ahead of ourselves.
“I think what happened last week was approval to licence spectrum for 5G which companies are yet to bid for and when the spectrums are auctioned, then companies who are granted the licence under the supervision of NCC to deploy the 5G technology.
“And of course, before they deploy, NCC will verify that the technology they are deploying has been certified by applicable bodies including the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for function and safety so that the technology can indeed be easily implemented in Nigeria.
“And so, I don’t have any anxiety all as this process continues, the 5G technology is actually implemented in Nigeria will be implemented in compliance with global standard. We have nothing to worry about.”
According to her, MainOne remains West Africa’s leading connectivity and data centre solutions provider, adding we are the first choice for whole internet, enterprise services, cloud solutions and managed data services for business with global-scale ambitions.
She added: “The company is a wholesale and infrastructure service provider, we are not a retail services provider on your phone but we work with all those companies because as you know we build submarine cables that carry traffic between Nigeria and other countries.
“In addition, we have major data centres across West Africa that house data and so with what you today if you want to do a banking transaction, most likely you are not going you are doing it over your phone where does that data resides the data needs to resides where all the networks is located.
“Whatever network that you operating, you need to be able to reach that data and complete your transaction and if you want to look up something on Google whatever device you are on you need to be able to pull up that data.”
What MainOne does according to her is house a lot of computers and the storage that has all that data and connect to all these networks both locally and internationally so that you can get all these apps working on your phone or on your laptops so that you can move information back and forth and can send email from wherever.
So, we provide the platform behind all these companies who provide services on your devices, to enable them do that be they application provider or communication services provider, Opeke, stressed.
On collaboration with government for Nigeria’s digital advancement, she added: “Our focus is on bringing all of our data as Nigerians because everybody say data is the new oil. Data is very valuable for marketing all kind of business development even the storage and processing of the data like we just talk about banks and service companies, engineering companies using data from the field to do analyses and make new developments.
“MainOne wants to see more of Nigerian data as we try to expand our digital economy, we want to see more of our data resident in Nigerian. That is why we are working with the MDAs to do that and as they are working on digitization they are making plans to host that data in Nigeria, build that capacity in Nigeria.
“MainOne is creating jobs, we are having full sovereign control of our data. Nigeria and the Nigerian economy will benefit from control of that data.