Wanted: 80, 000 Base Stations for Smart Nigeria

NIGERIA needs at least seventy to eighty
thousand telecommunication base stations to
actualize her dream of joining the club of
countries working toward making Internet of
Things (IoT) a reality by leveraging 4G and 5G
networks.

Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian
Communications Commission (NCC), Prof.
Umar Garba Danbatta, who made this known
at a sitting of the House Representatives’ Ad
Hoc Committee investigating the health
implications of mounting telecommunications
masts close to building, yesterday in Abuja,
said the country currently has less than 50,000
base stations.

“3G, 4G going to 5G networks are going to
usher this country into smart applications, the
Internet of Things or the smart world and cities
we are talking about. And of course because of
the additional burden on infrastructure, the
present capacity of telecom infrastructure is
grossly inadequate to cater for these additional
platforms or services we talk about.

Therefore
we will need from 70,000 to 80,000 base
transceiver masts to be able to provide the
effective capacity that’s needed to deploy 4G
going to 5G,” he said while responding to
questions from members of the ad hoc
committee.
He later called on other approving agencies at
all levels of government in the country to
synergize with NCC with a view to achieving
the target, noting that the United Kingdom
(UK), with a population of almost one third of
Nigeria already has close to 60,000 masts.

On concerns about health implications to
exposure to electromagnetic field, Danbatta
said researches so far conducted in the area
have not indicated any adverse health
concerns. “With regards to other professional
bodies like Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE)
we don’t have any quarrel with their positions.

The only question is when we say exposure to
electromagnetic field is hazardous to health
what level are we talking about? We have to
define the level of exposure that is hazardous
to human beings.

“Of course if you generate a massive
electromagnetic field of unprecedented
proportion and put a person inside, there will
be medical consequences. But what we are
saying is that: provided the limit specified is
observed and NCC is there to ensure
compliance with that limit, there is no health
hazard. There is a limit of safety below which
electromagnetic fields do not cause any harm
to health,” he explained.