The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) on Friday said it had trained more than 200 indigenous network engineers.
The ATCON’s President, Mr. Olusola Teniola, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the Internet Protocol Version Six (IPV6) training for Indigenous engineers started in 2013.
“We have trained well over 200 indigenous network engineers from well over 21 organisations, including the academia. This year’s edition is the fourth one.
“The association also engaged on ‘Telecommunications Appreciation Training’ for ICT Journalists in 2012, we trained over 40 ICT/Telecom Journalists,’’ Teniola said.
He said that the IPV6 training was to facilitate the migration of Nigerian network operators from IPV4 0to IPV6.
NAN reports that an IP address is essentially a postal address for every Internet-connected device which enables websites to send the search information to access the appropriate website.
IPV6 is the most recent version of IP, the communications’ protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the internet.
The ATCON President said that there was the need for the network operators to migrate to IPV6, because of its attendant advantages.
He said that parts of the challenges encountered with the training were funding and inadequacy of indigenous resource persons for the training.
According to him, ATCON will be able to train more engineers, with more support from relevant ICT/telecoms agencies, commissions of government and private organisations.
“Another challenge is the slow adoption of new technology like IPv6, which its implementation requires large capital outlay, to this end the knowledge acquired is not being used, as majority of Nigerian networks are not IPV6 complaint.”
“ATCON and its members will continue to campaign for the embrace of IPV6 in Nigeria,’’ he said.
Olusola expressed delight at the success story the training of the indigenous network engineers, who were now very competent like their international counterparts in IPV6 network implementation and deployment.
He said that the trained ICT journalists were now reporting the telecoms industry more professionally.
“Virtually all of them now have their own web-based, which has increased the country presence on the World Wide Web,’’ Teniola said.
(NAN)
