Ilukwe outlines benefits of infrastructure sharing in ICT

Speaking at the Sixth Annual Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation Forum in Abuja last week, Gerald Ilukwe, managing director of Galaxy BackBone, outlined the benefits of infrastructure sharing within the ICT sector.

"The overall investment in infrastructure is shared over several operators, and more robust infrastructure can be built," he declared.

Some of the benefits of infrastructure sharing include reduction in investment risk for operators and more efficient usage of investment capital, Ilukwe said. Supporting universal coverage objectives, infrastructure sharing also encourages competition by lowering barriers to entry and optimizing typically scarce manpower, he added.

In accordance with the mission of the government-owned Galaxy BackBone, Ilukwe said the company is determined to drive national development through the provision of ICT infrastructure and services to public institutions, under-served communities and other stakeholders.

Ilukwe named the challenges facing infrastructure sharing in developing countries as the risk of competitor sabotage, distrust among operators, cultural barriers to collaboration and risk of operator collusion. However, a lack of sufficient regulatory policy is perhaps the most paramount challenge, he said.

"The Nigerian Communications Commission has done some considerable work in this direction, but more needs to be done," he said of the lack of policy.

Infrastructure sharing has already paved the way to a pervasive infrastructure platform for e-government that supports open IP (Internet Protocol) technologies, Ilukwe noted, driving consistency, reliability and interoperability.