Nigeria QOS Showdown Imminent As NCC s Threat Angers Telecoms Operators

Post on: 2011-11-02 By: admin

Disturbed by the stern warning from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to MTN Nigeria, Globacom and Airtel over poor quality of service (QOS), the operators seem prepared for a showdown with NCC.
The operators who felt worried over the manner, in which NCC made public the warning statement, said they have done their home work concerning the matter and would come up with a statement of fact as well as a strong response to NCC on the matter.
NCC had last week, indicted MTN, Globacom and Airtel over poor quality of service from their networks and threatened to stop the three major mobile operators from further sale of SIM Cards by the end of November this year, if they fail to meet with the key performance indicators (KPI) set by the NCC to improve quality of service.
Any new SIM card sold, or additional subscriber added to the network in contravention of the direction, will attract a penalty of N1 million per subscriber added.
The three operators were issued a 30-day deadline, effective from November 1, 2011, to reverse the trend.
The commission also said that after the expiration of the 30-day deadline, it would strictly enforce the impending direction whose contravention will attract a penalty of N5 million and additional N500,000 per day that such contravention persists.
Reacting to NCC's planned sanction on the three telecom operators, Director, Corporate Communications for Airtel, Mr. Emeka Oparah, who spoke to THISDAY on phone, said the telecoms company would definitely reply NCC on the matter and come up with the real facts that would be made public before the close of work yesterday. According to him, Airtel management has already prepared its report from its research findings and would make it public as it is.
According to Oparah, Airtel is very concerned about customer services and would do everything possible to satisfy its subscribers.
Corporate Services Executive for MTN, Mr. Wale Goodluck could not be reached on phone, as he was not picking his calls.
Globacom, the third operator concerned with the NCC's statement, appeared to have to have the same view with Airtel, with plans to come up with an official statement that would address the issue of quality of service on its network.
A source close to Globacom, however said the company would continue to increase its investment on infrastructure rollout in order to address the situation.
Also reacting to the NCC's planned sanction on erring telecom operators, National President of the Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Mr. Deolu Ogunbanjo, blamed the NCC for the poor quality of service across networks.
Ogunbanjo, who spoke to THISDAY on phone said NCC, led by its former Executive Vice Chairman, Ernest Ndukwe, was largely responsible for the poor state of telecom services in the country.
He explained that the NCC was busy granting new numbering plans to telecoms operators and collecting licensing fees for the new numbering plans without enforcing strict network expansion on the part of operators to accommodate the surge that would accompany it.
According to him, MTN, for instance has about seven different numbering plans and that each plan accommodates ten million subscriber lines, insisting that MTN was given unrestricted permission to register too many subscribers on its network without expanding its network infrastructure in the same way.
The same, he said, applies to Globacom and Airtel, which he said also have several numbering plans. Globacom has four different numbering plans (0805, 0807, 0705 and 0815), Airtel has five and Etisalat, the newest entrant into the GSM market already has 3 different numbering plans, Ogunbanjo said.
He explained that the liberty to have several numbering plans, made telecom operators to forget the real issue of quality telecom services offering
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