Nigeria and Niger Republic have signed a bilateral agreement to coordinate frequency utilisation along their borders.
This is contained in a statement signed by Reuben Muoka, the Director of Public Affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), on Sunday in Abuja.
The agreement seeks to ensure seamless deployment of services within the two countries.
Signing of the agreement is one of the highlights of the two-day Digital Economy Regional Conference, held in Nigeria.
The Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy facilitated conference in Abuja.
Prof. Isa Pantami, the minister of Communications and Digital Economy, signed on behalf of Nigeria.
His Nigerien counterpart and Minister of Post and New Information Technologies, Moussa Baraze, signed on behalf of the Niger Republic
Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, and Niger Republic’s Chairperson of the National Council for Regulation of Electronic Communications and Post, Mrs Aichatou Oumani, witnessed to the agreement.
The agreement applies to co-ordination of frequencies within the Nigeria-Niger transboundary areas between 87.5 megahertz (MHz) and 30 gigahertz (GHz).
It would help in the effective coordination and sharing of frequencies and channels in the ‘buffer zone.
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It would also address issue of signal interference regulation arising in telecoms signal transmissions by terrestrial telecoms service providers.
The agreement spells out the procedures for regulating such cases.
In case of harmful interference affecting one of the parties, the agreement provides that affected party shall inform the other party in writing for necessary action.
“The party from whence the interference is originating, shall take steps to resolve the harmful interference.
“The party must take such steps within 30 days of receipt of the notice,” the agreement read in part.
It states that the land and mobile services whose use is restricted for security, maritime and national defence reasons or for which information is not available, shall not be subjected to the provisions of the agreement.
It is without prejudice to the rights and obligations of the parties specified in the convention.
The agreement is also without prejudice to Constitution of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and other inter-governmental arrangements.
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