The way governance and business are conducted in Abia is poised to change for good as a Lagos based firm, Broadbased Communications commences deployment of fiber optic network in the capital city of Umuahia and the commercial city of Aba.

The state government had last year signed a memorandum of understanding with the firm to connect the state to the information super highway with their open access platform to enhance productivity in both the public and private sector of the economy.

The Executive Director of Broadbased Communications, Mr. Chris Erewele, Snr, who announced the commencement of the open access fiber optic telecommunications network at a press conference in Umuahia yesterday, said that quality of life would generally improve for Abians.

He said the public private project was expected to gulp $100 million with government providing right of way while the firm would bear the cost and technical aspect to the project, which would be rolled out in December. According to him, the open access fiber optic network would support the transformation agenda of the state governor, Chief Theodore Orji "by providing connectivity for e-government, e-medicine, e-agriculture, e-commerce, e-taxation, e-licensing, e-learning and many other services.

"This network will enable Abia State to attract major foreign direct investments (FDI), create employment, increase state GDP, increase the state's internally generated revenue (IGR) and enable the state to meet the UN MDGs," Erewele said.

For the fiber optic platform to make the expected impact in governance and commerce activities in the state, the Executive Director said services would be provided to other telecoms operators, wireless services providers, internet service providers, government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), corporate organisations and Abia residents.

Chief marketing officer, Mr. Chidi Ibisi, further explained that the residents of Abia would experience a new lease of life as Broadbased would deploy all packet transport network (PTN), which would enable triple play telecom services, namely land line digital telephone services, broadband internet, IP television, video services and data connectivity.

However, the chief executive officer, Mr. John Mercado was quick to clarify that the firm would not provide content, saying, "we provide the pipeline for everybody (hence) the shared infrastructure is open to everybody to use".

He noted that the fiber optic network would spur competition and bring quality service and "everybody will benefit."


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t a orji has made any positive news in abia to be looked with suspicion.