1. BROADBAND: A CATALYST TO NATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Achoja Keren-happuch Arho
Department of Electronic Engineering,
University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
ABSTRACT
Broadband is known to have many definitions, but fundamentally, it is a service that
allows a high speed of data transfer over the internet. Its speed is fast enough to meet
economic demands of any given sector in a nation. It has growing benefits to economic
growth, businesses, government and individuals. Broadband has been seen to have great
benefits on national economy such as GDP growth, job creation, energy efficiencies,
improved communication and many more.
Keywords: Broadband, networks, national development, telecommunication.
INTRODUCTION
A game you love so much that you badly need to download it; a programme going on in
Canada that you need to watch live by streaming it; an online lecture you need to attend at a
particular fixed time; all you have is a modem of a particular network. You might get
frustrated at the end of the day because there may either be network failure, or the megabytes
you subscribed for may get exhausted. There must be an end to all of this! The solution in
this 21st century is broadband internet access. Just the same way as electricity has great
impact on productivity, innovation and growth, so also does broadband have an influential
transformation on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and also on the
economy as a whole.
BACKGROUND
Broadband is telecommunication in which a wideband of frequencies are used to transmit
data. According to Encyclopaedia of Network, broadband transmission is an analog
communication strategy in which multiple communication channels are used simultaneously.
[1] This technique allows a high capacity of information to be sent simultaneously. Data in
broadband transmission is modulated in frequency bands and then transmitted through

2. channels such as coaxial cables or fibre optic cables. Broadband internet access can be
through the following media;
- Cable modem
- Digital Serial Line (DSL)
- Satellite based services
- Fixed-base wireless
- Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
- Leased lines.
The importance of broadband can be seen in various ways such as these;
 Broadband services can download at a speed of 128kbps for ISDN and even go
beyond 500kbps. It can also upload data at a high speed.
 Broadband services are always on and provide you with an immediate connection
whenever you open your web browser.
 You can be using your telephone and at the same time surf the internet.
 Broadband network is based on automatically configured Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP)/IP network settings and this makes it possible for you to keep your
broadband connection running while upgrading your windows. [2]
“Internet services and information delivered over broadband networks provide the
means by which entrepreneurs and small businesses are finding new markets; farmers are
finding the best price for their produce; students are seeing and talking to skilled teachers
who may be thousands of miles away; businesses are increasing productivity by giving new
collaboration tools to employees, suppliers, and clients; medical practitioners in small towns
are sharing images and talking to doctors in larger centres about complex cases; citizens are
accessing government services conveniently from their own home or from a computer-
equipped government service center quickly, efficiently, and without having to pay a fee to
move up the queue; and police are viewing high-risk sites through modern surveillance
systems, thereby increasing public safety”.[3]
Broadband is also a distribution system, a personal tool for interacting with
the world, and a catalyst and enabler of an endless array of other products, processes,
and services. [4]

3. Based on the Net Readiness Index (NRI), Nigeria this year ranks the 90th out of 134
countries. Over the past six years, the trend in Nigeria’s NRI score has been increasing,
though still significantly below the NRI average. This must be a source of concern, as it
affects the country’s competitiveness and its ability to benefit from the potential of broadband
specifically and ICT in general.
Consequently, Nigeria falls in the “early days” stage of Internet connectivity. These
are countries that have Internet usage rates between 5 percent and 15 percent, but the large
majority of the population has yet to experience the Internet directly. Many people in these
countries use the Internet through shared-access connections (cybercafés or community
centers), so that the number of Internet users is a multiple of about five times the number of
Internet connections in the country. But Nigeria has past this stage a bit. Nigeria’s position
shows the challenge ahead and the need to maintain a dual focus on improving the country’s
ICT infrastructure and its ecosystem to foster technology adoption. Infrastructure investments
are keys, but the payoff from those investments is much greater when they take place in the
context of a propitious ecosystem. The ICT environment in Nigeria points to the need for
greater ICT infrastructure investment in order to achieve economic and social goals. [5]
Broadband is not only a means toward long-term growth; it can be immediately put into
place in order to address today’s challenges, which include economic stimulus and jobs. In
addition to jobs created in the design, construction, and management of broadband networks,
there are many jobs involved in the development of digital content (including content in local
languages) and new applications, as well as in the new types of economic activity which
broadband makes possible.
From a policy perspective, broadband should be viewed more broadly as an enabling ICT
platform that can potentially influence the entire economy and thus may act as a general-
purpose technology (GPT) that is used as a key input across sectors. [6] Broadband has a
potentially larger growth effect than other ICTs, including wire line telephony, mobile
telephony, and the Internet.
“A 10 percent increase in broadband household penetration delivers a boost to a
country’s GDP that ranges from 0.1 percent to 1.4 percent” [7]
Though unfortunate, despite providing a new educational resource, broadband can
also create a new distraction if careful controls are not in place that limit Internet access to

4. non-academic sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and file sharing websites; although, this can
be checkmated and also be used for educational and informative purposes.
Broadband enables job creation through three main channels: (1) direct jobs created to
deploy the broadband infrastructure, (2) indirect and induced jobs created from this activity,
and (3) additional jobs created as a result of broadband network externalities and extremes.
Each of these channels focuses on a different type of jobs: unskilled, skilled, and highly
skilled. Direct jobs relate primarily to civil works and construction of broadband
infrastructure, which don’t necessarily involve high-tech positions. Indirect and induced jobs
require various levels of skilled workers. However, network effects jobs are mainly high-skill
jobs requiring specific technical knowledge and education. Indeed, broadband externalities
employment effects are not uniform. Instead, they tend to concentrate in service industries,
such as financial services or health care. Broadband can also produce some effects in middle-
skill jobs, such as in manufacturing, usually related to the use of ICT and requiring ICT
skills.
Broadband also has a social effect on urbanization. Because the rural populace rush
into the urban areas in search of employment, better living standards and higher education,
this affects most developing countries. Broadband solves this problem by providing new job
opportunities, which include the ability to work from home. It also helps in distance learning
which can allow a person to have a master’s degree while in his village; by this reducing the
urban desire. [8]
Broadband is seen to have a very strong impact on research and development which
leads to innovative technologies and faster productivity. Like in the industrial sector, it helps
businesses to manage their supply chain by enabling faster, more secure and more reliable
processing.
The health care sector has also been positively affected by broadband applications and
services. Of course, it is said that health is wealth. Broadband connectivity is necessary to
capture the full potential of e-health services, including telemedicine, which enables real-time
audio and video communications between patients and doctors as well as between health care
providers.[6] In Nigeria, the government lacked sufficient public health information to allocate
health care services efficiently to over 800 villages with no primary health care. A public-
private partnership, Project Mailafia, was established to alleviate this situation. Project
Mailafia sends teams of mobile health care providers to remote villages, where they treat

5. patients and collect health data that support better public health decision making and resource
allocation. Mobile health workers collect the data on ruggedized netbooks and transfer the
data to area clinics. The clinics then upload the data to a central database using Worldwide
Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)
technologies. [10]
CONCLUSION
Broadband can be seen as not just an infrastructure but also as a general- purpose
technology which is able to reconstruct a national economy. Extensive research worldwide
firmly establishes the fact that broadband networks can help countries cross the digital divide
by delivering extensive personal, social and economic benefits. The importance of broadband
may be fully realized as it becomes a general purpose technology.

6. REFERENCES
[1] Werner Fiebel, Encyclopaedia of Networking, Second ed., Network Press, California.pp
109-110, 1996.
[2] Scott Mueller, Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 14th ed.,Que, Indianapolis, Indiana,
pp.1042-43,2003.
[3] Joan McCalla et al., Broadband Across Africa,Cisco Systems, Inc., 2000
[4] Capturing the Promise of Broadband for North Carolina and America, The Baller Herbst
Law Group, June 2008.
[5]http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTINFORMATIONANDCO
MMUNICATIONANDTECHNOLOGIES/0,,contentMDK:21156458~pagePK:2100
58~piPK:210062~theSitePK:282823~isCURL:Y,00.html
[6] Tim Kelly and Carlo M. Rossotto, Broadband Strategies Handbook, The World Bank,
Washington, D. C., pp. 1-24,2012.
[7] Buttkereit, Sören, Luis Enriquez, Ferry Grijpink, Suraj Moraje, Wim Torfs, and
Tanja Vaheri-Delmulle. 2009. “Mobile Broadband for the Masses: Regulatory
Levers to Make It Happen.” McKinsey and Company, London, February. http://
www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/telecommunications/Mobile_broadband_
for_the_masses.pdf.
[8] Intel corporation, “ Realizing the Benfits of Broadband”, white paper, 2010.
[9] United Nations Industrial Development Organization, “UNIDO Releases Latest
International Yearbook of Industrial Statistics,” Press Release, March 10, 2010,
http://www.unido.org/index.php? id=7881&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=455&cHash
=09cad462f0.
[10] Intel. 2010. “Realizing the Benefits of Broadband.” Intel, Santa Clara, CA. http://
www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/Article/WA-323857001.pdf