SHALOM OLALEYE
Nigeria and Republic of Niger have signed a bilateral agreement for coordination of frequency utilisation along their borders.
The agreement signed in Abuja to ensure seamless deployment of services around within the two countries was one of the highlights of the two-day Digital Economy Regional Conference, hosted by the Nigerian government and facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, which ended at the Transcorp Hilton.
The Nigeria Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, signed on behalf of Nigeria, while his Nigerien counterpart, the Minister of Post and New Information Technologies, Moussa Baraze, signed on behalf of his country.
This agreement, according to the two parties, provides, in part, that in case of harmful interference affecting one of the parties, the affected party shall inform the other party in writing for necessary action to be carried out.
The agreement indicated it will help in effective coordination and sharing of frequencies and channels in the ‘buffer zone or area’ on borderlines between the two countries and also help to address one of the major issues of signal interference regulation that may arise in telecoms signal transmissions by terrestrial telecoms service providers, as it spells out the procedures for regulating such cases.
“Also, the party from whence the interference is originating shall ensure that all necessary means are used to resolve the harmful interference within 30 days of receipt of the notice”, the agreement says.
