* Danbatta 
The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC has realised over  N47 billion from spectrum usage and licensing with the past one year says Professor Umar  Danbatta in Abuja Monday.

 Prof. Danbatta, NCC’s Executive Vice-Chairman and  Chief Executive Officer, CEO stated that the Commission achieved the feat “Through efficient monitoring and value-driven usage of spectrum for provision of different types of service" which led to improvement in frequecy allocation and renewal fees thereby impoving revenue generation for the Federal Government which  surpassed that of previous years.

 Other measures taken by the Commission include encouraging  the re-farming of the various frequencies to improve their efficiency leading to some service providers who were hitherto providing services on the 1800 megahertz (MHz) spectrum band to refarm and deploy services on the 4GLTE band

 Danbatta made the disclosures during a media interactive session at NCC headquarters where he presented updates on the Commissions 8-points agenda, 2015-2016. He described the agenda as "a roadmap, designed with the underlining determination to allign our regulatory efforts to compliment emergent priorities of the present Federal Government, and streamline our focus in the quest to put our nation in the league of structured telecom development that will in turn lead to socio-economic development"

 He observed  that since the telecoms sector currently contributes over 10% to Nigeria's annual GDP, the  development  imposes on the sector and ICT in 

 general the mandate to provide  some level of fortification to economic diversification opportunities. 

 Such considerations, he maintained motivated the factoring of the 8-point agenda upon the tripod of Availability of Service, Accessibility of Service and Affordability of Service

 Danbatta  affirmed that the 8-point agenda unveiled one year ago under his leadership is being pursued with passion and has yielded results like improvement in  broadband penetration. According to him,  broadband, having gained  global identification  as a tool for accelerated socio-economic development is the flagship of the 8-point agenda. 

 "The provision of the National Broadband Plan that has set a target of 30% penetration from 2013-2018 accentuates our emphasis on broadband penetration. The Commission recognises its responsibility in the actualisation of the National Broadband Plan" he stated. He also added that Nigeria has reached active mobile penetration of 20.95% up from 10%, while internet penetration has peaked at 47.44%, second to South Africa in Africa.

 Speaking on developments in mobile network operations,  the NCC boss warned mobile network operators, MNOs that to desist from  subscriber identity module, SIM card pre-registration. He said SIM pre-registration complicates the security situation in the country as such cards are virtully untraceable. He noted that in some instances, unscrupulous elements use pre-registered SIM cards to call the families of their kidnapped victims to negotiate ransom. He warned that the NCC would strictly enforce the regulations on SIM pre-registration.

 The NCC chief further  affirmed that the telecom sector under his watch  had not only witnessed all round improvement and growth, but that specific areas of challenge such as infrastructure development, improved services from service providers and development of regulatory frameworks, multiple taxation and multiple regulation, consumer protection and consumer empowerment  were clearly enunciated in the 8-point agenda and were being addressed headlong.