User Acceptance of Mobile Broadband in Nigeria

Abstract

Broadband access has been identified as a fundamental part of any thriving economy because it contributes to GDP.  Besides, mobile broadband has been seen as the means for which developing countries can leapfrog into the post-industrial era. According to the figure released by Nigerian Communications Commission in April, 2014, the number of mobile internet subscribers had dropped from 64.5 to 63 million as at February, 2014 and steadily rose to 87 million in April, 2015. Considering those figures and comparing it with the national population figure of about 178 million, and the mobile telephone subscription figure of about 145 million in Nigeria, the rate of acceptance of mobile broadband is not an appreciable penetration rate to substantially drive the adoption of other e-services like mobile commerce, mobile payment services throughout the entire country, except for few cities. To bridge this gap and foster faster rate of acceptance of mobile internet, this paper sought to investigate the factors that could stimulate the intention of users to use mobile broadband in Nigeria by empirically validating an integrated research model, adopted from the unified theory of acceptance and use technology (UTUAT) model by integrating mobile broadband motivation, government support and perceived price value constructs. Online survey data was collected from 376 respondents and analyzed using partial least square (SmartPLS) technique. Result shows that mobile broadband motivation, government support, perceived price value, social influence’ and facilitating conditions are significant determinants of intention behavior to use mobile broadband in Nigeria. The findings of this research are vital to telecoms and broadband service providers in understanding the factors that stimulate people’s behavior for subscribing to mobile internet and for deploying infrastructures and services; it will also help government and telecoms regulators to streamline their policy towards meeting these factors. To the academia, this integrated research model presents an extended view of the UTAUT model for investigating the determinants of broadband acceptance in developing countries.

Keywords: mobile broadband, motivation, government support, Nigeria