The Minister of the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, says the government has reduced the current cost of data by 50%.
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He revealed the new development in a statement on Thursday explaining that the reduction was made possible in line with his directives to the service providers through the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC.
According to a statement from the Minister, this followed measures put in place by the Ministry to significantly reduce the average cost of data at an incremental rate.
He revealed that the average cost of 1GB data has been reduced from N1,000 cost at January 2020 to N487.18 in November.
The Minister inaugurated a committee that developed the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (2020-2025) on the 16th of December, 2019. This, the Minister believes will even reduce the data cost more coming 2025.
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The Nigerian National Broadband plan was unveiled and launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on the 19th of March, 2020. One of the goals of the Plan is to reduce the average cost of 1GB of data to a maximum of N390 by 2025.
Starting January 2020 with N1,000 per GB, the maximum projected steady decrease for the end of each year was as follows: 2020 (N925), 2021 (N850), 2022 (N775), 2023 (N700), 2024 (N545) and 2025 (N390),”
“In line with Dr. Pantami’s commitment to under promise and over deliver, the measures have caused the current cost of data to reduce significantly beyond the December 2020 projection of N925.
“Based on the report by NCC, the average cost of N1,000 data as of November 2020 was N487.18, which amounts to 47.33% lower than the projected value
“The report also indicates that the cost of data in November 2020 was less than 50% of the cost of data in January 2020,” the statement said.
He hinted on complaints by customers about rapid data depletion, assuring consumers that the ministry will be looking into the issue to resolve it accordingly.
