Nigeria and Niger Republics have signed a bilateral agreement for the coordination of frequency utilisation along their borders to ensure seamless deployment of services.

Director of public affairs at the Nigerian Communications Commission, Reuben Muoka, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.

The statement said the agreement’s signing ceremony was one of the highlights of the two-day Digital Economy Regional Conference, hosted by Nigeria and facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy.

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, signed on behalf of Nigeria, while the Minister of Post and New Information Technologies, Moussa Baraze, signed on behalf of Niger Republic.

The NCC executive vice-chairman, Umar Danbatta, and the Niger Republic’s chair of the National Council for Regulation of Electronic Communications and Post, Aichatou Oumani, witnessed the ceremony.

The agreement applied to the coordination of frequencies existing in the Nigeria-Niger transboundary areas between 87.5 megahertz (MHz) to 30 gigahertz (GHz).

“The agreement will help in the effective coordination and sharing of frequencies and channels in the ‘buffer zone or area’ on borderlines between the two countries,” the statement explained. “It will 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.”

According to the agreement, it will provide, 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.

(NAN)