Telecom stakeholders insist operators ignored NCC’s directive
Stakeholders in the telecom industry have expressed their dissatisfaction on the partial compliance of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to operators to implement the “Do Not Disturb” directive on all networks.
This position was made known at the 4th Quarter open forum of Industry Consumer Advisory Forum, (ICAF) held in Lagos, Thursday organized by the NCC to know the level of compliance and stakeholders’ feedback on the adoption of the use of short code 2442 in all networks.
In his welcome address, Mr Abdullahi I. Maikano, Director of the Consumer Affairs Bureau, Nigerian Communications Commission noted that the theme ‘ DO-NOT-DISTURB’(DND), the solution to unsolicited messages, was deliberately chosen, adding that the network operators have now adopted the short code 2442.
He however, advised the subscribers to use toll-free line 622 of NCC to lodge their complaint if all their efforts to stop such message using the ‘DO-NOT-DISTURB’ (DND) fails.
The outgoing Chairperson ICAF, Mrs Nwaka Laetitia Akinlami informed stakeholders that ICAF since it was inaugurated in 2009 has made viable contributions and recommendation in SIM card registration, Mobile Number Portability and Mobile Money.
According to her, the unsolicited messages have been considerably reduced and commended the NCC for helping to reduce the surge on unsolicited text messages.
However, the Director-General, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Mrs Dupe C. Atoki, who was represented by Mr Joshua Nggadda in her presentation on “DND Implementation: The Consumer Perspective,” highlighted the catalogues of stakeholders’ complaints.
Atoki stated that “unsolicited messages and forced subscriptions have over time been the hallmark of the Nigerian telecomm service, adding those telecom operators or their surrogates (3rd party content developers) flood subscribers phones with tons of text messages every day, advertising one service or the other. Some even forcibly subscribe consumers to different services and deduct various sums of money without the consent of affected consumers. Examples of unsolicited messages can be seen in the following screenshots: Get N1,950 to call all network +100MB data for N500,SMS V500 to 131, Val/7days; Dear Customer, you’ve been selected to enjoy 4G LTE like never before, simply get an MTN MiFi device & 20GB of data for only N10,000! Limited stock available and so on. “However, months after the said directive was given to telecom operators by NCC, complaints about promotional and marketing messages from 3rd Party services (Bulk SMS, VAS promos, etc) still persist.
“ Some instances, the Do-Not-Disturb service suffered technical hitches as they failed to work as expected. In this respect, there are insinuations among consumers that the so-called technical hitches may be the MNOs ploy to deliberately frustrate consumers from making use of the DND service.”
CPC, she said, supports the imposition of punitive fines by NCC on MNOs that violate the Commission’s directive on the DND service. The Council’s position, however, is that the enforcement of the DND service should be stepped up by NCC to ensure that the MNOs comply fully with the directive in the interest of consumers.
