According to Adrian Wood, former Chief Executive Officer of MTN Nigeria, if it took about $25 billion to secure solid mobile connectivity across the country, an additional $25 billion is needed to roll out fibre nationally.

Speaking to journalists in Lagos, Wood said he believes that Nigeria is ready for ubiquitous broadband that he described as the next phase of telecoms revolution but for now, he advised stakeholders to focus on laying inland optic fiber.

"If it is going to take $25 billion to get good coverage of mobile connectivity, then it will take another $25 billion to get good fibre coverage in Nigeria. Going by the 774 local government areas in Nigeria, it then means fibre must cover all the cities, towns and villages in the all the 774 local government areas of Nigeria and that is massive investment for investors so have foresight about broadband business," he said.

"Today, broadband access is concentrated in cities like Lagos, Ibadan and little in Abuja and Port Harcourt, so we really do not have enough broadband access in Nigeria, which is huge opportunity for investors. Broadband is essential for job creation, industry development and for national development. So I am a great advocate of investing in Nigeria in the area of broadband," the expert said.

Wood's position was also supported by the spokesperson for the annual Africa Digital Forum and Awards, Tayo Adewusi.

Adewusi said the country needs to give utmost attention to delivering broadband technology as a way of catalysing the growth of the nation's economy. "Broadband is at the heart of the economy and covers support services, electronic billing, Wi-Fi, electronic monitoring, inventory management and web security. Other areas are device configuration, project management, e-ticketing and installation. An increase in the adoption of broadband in the country would drive and support several services and applications in the economy. But the broadband needs to be affordable for users," he said.