Nigerian telecom firms should share infrastructure to achieve set goals the country’s national broadband policy, says the telecommunications watchdog.

Speaking at the second Annual Consultative Forum on Engineering and Emerging Technologies in Lagos, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) executive vice chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said active infrastructure sharing was one of the reasons international telecoms markets are more advanced than Nigeria.

Executive commissioner for stakeholders engagement at NCC, Okechukwu Itanyi, presented on behalf of Juwah.

He added that availability of spectrum resources is also a prerequisite to achieving broadband provision.

Also according to him, developments in the Nigerian telecoms industry have created just a few vertically integrated players who have built infrastructures purely for individual players.

This trend, he said, has resulted in unfavourable pricing of services.

Juwah noted that regulatory intervention in the market could ensure more open and non-discriminatory access by all players and reduce barriers to access.

This, he said, informed the open access model which had given birth to telecoms infrastructure company InfraCo.