Improve quality of service or be fined - NCC

In separate letters dated 19 September 2007 and published on its website with the title Notice of Intention to Issue Direction, NCC said it intended to act in accordance to its powers as provided in section 53 of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003.

According to the telecoms industry regulator, the move has become necessary due to continued complaints by subscribers on the poor quality of services being offered by these networks and losses resulting from it.

The NCC said if the poor services continued, it would enforce the sanction on the operators as from 1 October 2007.

The letters read in part, "The commission is still being inundated with complaints from subscribers on the issue of poor and unacceptable level of quality of service on the networks of mobile services operators in Nigeria including Celtel, Glo and MTN resulting in losses to subscribers. The commission observes with serious concern that the quality of service in the Nigerian telecoms industry has remained poor in spite of the directions issued to operators with the obvious implication that subscribers continue to suffer and incur losses owing to the poor and deteriorating quality of service."

In a statement by its Secretary, Felix Adeoye, the NCC stated that Traffic Channel Congestion would be the main parameter to determine network performance.

The statement said where congestion was between 2 and 5%, this would attract a monthly refund of N50; where it was 5 - 10%, N100; but where a congestion level was above 10%, the refund would be N175 per subscriber.

The regulator told the operators that the refund to subscribers would be without prejudice on condition that no part of their networks experience a localised congestion of more than 5%.

The commission said it would consider further sanctions if congestion above that threshold was found to persist for an extended period of time without being corrected to the satisfaction of the regulator.

The development represents another in the ongoing efforts to ensure improved quality of services.

The NCC had earlier fined Globacom N5 million for what it said was a contravention of its orders on promotional activities.

Compensation of subscribers is not new in Nigeria's mobile telecoms sector as the NCC had forced some operators to refund N100 paid by subscribers for migration to per second billing platforms.

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