Broadband for Nigeria (BB4N) - visibility

John Dada is actively involved in this project.

On August 28th 2010 he chaired the Broadband for Nigeria stakeholders Forum in Abuja, Nigeria.

Prior to this John initiated Zittnet at Fantsuam Foundation.

Background to the project

Zittnet serves up to 10,000 rural clients within 70 km radius of Attachab (near Kafanchan, North Central Nigeria)

Dial-up internet access in the region is extremely poor (the phone lines are very unreliable). Cable broadband is only provided to major government facilities, and does not reach to ordinary people. Fantsuam Foundation’s vision is to  provide reliable, sustainable broadband to most of the population who lie between the major cities of Jos and Abuja, who currently are not otherwise served with viable internet (or internet phone) access. The plan is to:

• use WiFi protocol (WiMax is expensive)
•  give a bandwidth up to 8 Mbit/s per user

Currently:

• Zittnett's VSAT,  but ultimately, the aim is to lay fibre optic cable the 70 km from Jos.
• Solar panels provide reliable, economical power (vastly more reliable than intermittent, fluctuating mains electricity, more affordable and sustainable than diesel generators)
  mast with and 2.4 GHz omnidirectional base station anntennae transmit to users in a 70 km radius
• 3 m VSAT dish relays all signals to/from the outside world
• Industry-standard WiFi billing solutions handle user charging

Dadamac is helping this to be more visible.