NCC, operators hold parley over quality of service
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said it has declared state of emergency over poor quality of service in the telecommunications industry after holding closed-door meeting with digital mobile operators in Abuja on Monday.
Journalists were not allowed into the venue of the meeting, but a statement issued by Director of Public Affairs, Mr. Tony Ojobo, at the end of the meeting said that the Commission had declared a state of emergency to rescue the industry from poor quality of service, without giving the details of what the state of emergency entails.
Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, told the operators at the meeting, that NCC had written and secured a promise from the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, to address their foreign exchange needs, adding that the CBN Governor was favourably disposed to addressing the forex needs of the operators.
The Executive Commissioner (Stakeholders Management), NCC, Mr. Sunday Dare, he said also had a meeting with Emefiele and extracted a commitment from him on how he hoped to address the forex needs of the operators.
Danbatta said since the NCC had declared 2017 as the year of the consumer, measures have been put in place to check and monitor quality of service on various networks so that telecom consumers could have a fresh lease to high quality of service.
He charged the operators and co-location service operators to provide suggestions on how to address the situation.
NCC’s Executive Commissioner (Technical Services), Mr. Ubale Maska, stated at the meeting that quality of services had been a great concern as consumers inundate the commission with complaints, stressing that “it requires everybody’s input if the situation has to be redressed, hence 2017 has been declared the year of the consumer.”
On his part, the Director, Technical Standards and Network Integrity, Dr. Fidelis Ona, underscored that the commission was aware of some of the challenges which include Right of Way, (RoW), force majeure, difficulty in acquiring new cell sites, multiple taxation and regulation, vandalism, power supply and so on.
“We are engaging stakeholders, including Industry Working Group on Quality of Service, special committee on Counter Harmonization to address this,” Ona said.
Head, Quality of Service Unit, Mr. Edoyemi Ogoh, in his presentation, traced poor quality of service to fibre cuts, community issues, among others, stressing that in October 2016 operators witnessed 175 cuts across the nation while they experienced 180 cuts in November and 103 in December 2016 respectively.
