Dadamac UK have received the following information from John Dada.
"We at Fantsuam Foundation have been making enquiries about how we can leverage the coming broadband revolution for Nigeria's last mile connectivity: our pilot in Kafanchan aims to reach 1 Million under-served and un-served rural communities of Nigeria with affordable and accessible connectivity.
The Nigerian Broadband Consortium which is providing firbre connectivity to tertiary institutions is able to offer 1kbps @ $1.00
The lowest VSAT offer we can get at the moment is 310% more expensive. If Broadband is to be accessible and affordable at the bottom of the pyramid, optic fibre is clearly the way to go.
Normally, Nigerian Government could easily provide the $15,000 set-up cost of optic fibre offered by the Nigerian Broadband Consortium, but who or how to make the necessary contact for this is a challenge: is there a window under USPF? Will Galaxy Backbone support such effort?
The recent high profile Broadband Forum hosted by Association of Telcos, Nigeria, ATCON had tacit endorsement of the nigerian Communication Commission, NCC. If NCC would support deployment of optic fibre to Nigeria's under-served communities, that will signal the sort of enabling environment that can make ATCON members take the leap to the bottom of the pyramid.
The business case for promoting accessible and affordable broadband access at grassroots has been eloquently made over the years, ranging from job creation for Nigerian teeming youths, accelerated computer and internet literacy, crowd sourcing to eHealth, eLearning
For a sustained ICT-mediated economic growth at the Last Mile, Fibre is the way to go, it is cheaper in the long run and more stable",
The photo above shows the new mast being rerected at Fantsuam after storm damage in 2009.