Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has made a presentation of N2.5m to the lead research on the implementation of Software-Based Nomadic Base Station.

The NCC had invited research proposals from tertiary institutions in the country to promote telecoms-based innovations from the academia as a critical aspect of the Commission’s mandate.

The promotion of ICT Research & Development Innovations from the academia has been captured in the Commission’s Strategic Management Plan, 2014 – 2018.

The presentation of this grant to the lead researcher, Dr. Victor Olugbemiga Matthews of the Covenant University, for the Realisation of the “Implementation of a Software-based Nomadic Base Station (NBS)” is the culmination of a detailed process of evaluation of the concept to ascertain its integrity and capacity to add value to the Communications Industry, according to information circulated by NCC via social media.

The concept was evaluated along with ten other research proposals by professionals from the academia, industry, the public sector and the regulator who ultimately rated the research proposal as the most preferred submission.

The Commission said it was guided by this informed decision of the professionals and the claim of the researchers that the portable NBS is realizable locally and capable of boosting the capacity of contiguous cell sites to cope with unplanned traffic surge at places of big events and high telecommunication usage.

The role of the NCC in this project is to provide a grant to the researchers to produce the research proposal to prototype.

If the Prototype is robust and competitive, there should be investors to fund its mass production to the mutual benefit of the researchers/Covenant University and the financial collaborators.