NCC GIVES DECEMBER 31ST TO GSM OPERATORS TO IMPROVE SERVICES

Indications emerged at the weekend that the Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) is set to come down hard on the country's
telecommunications firms over poor service quality.
THISDAY checks revealed that the commission has formally notified the
affected firms and has set December 31 as deadline for them to improve
on their service.
Failure by the telecoms firms to comply with the deadline, according
to NCC, will attract stiffer penalties including payment of fine and
suspension from sale of new SIM cards among others.
Telecommunications firms, especially mobile telephone companies, have
continued to attract criticisms from members of the public over poor
quality of service, including drop calls and unsolicited text messages
sent to subscribers.
Consequently, the NCC has communicated its decision to issue new
quality service regulations to the management of all the affected
companies.
The letter dated December 10, a copy of which was made available to
THISDAY, notified the operators of the readiness of NCC to issue a
direction on the quality of service, which must be complied with by
all the operators.
The letter read in part, "The commission after careful investigation
of the quality of service of all the major network operators has
concluded that the present service being provided by
telecommunications service providers falls below the Key Performance
Indicators published by the commission in the quality service
regulation.
"The commission, having critically reviewed the declining quality of
service, had decided to issue a direction pursuant to Section 21 and
54 of the Nigerian Communication Act 2003."Failure to comply with any
direction that may be issued pursuant to the above notice will result
in the imposition of sanction in the amount of N5 million and a
further sum of N500,000 per day after the expiration of the notice for
as long as the contravention persists and calculated from the deadline
specified by the commission for the operators to meet the commission's
standard of quality of service."
The letter was signed by Director, Legal and Regulatory Services, NCC,
Mrs. Josephine Amuwa.
The letter was addressed to MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, Airtel
Networks, Etisalat Limited, Globacom Limited, Swift Network,
Intercellular Nigeria Plc, Multilinks Telecoms Limited and Visafone
Communications Limited.
Spokesperson of the commission, Mr. Reuben Mouka, declined to comment
on the issue, but a source confided in THISDAY that the penalties for
default might include suspension from sale of new lines, among others.
The source added that by implication, if any of the KPIs failed to
comply by December 31, such would warrant stoppage of the sale of SIM
cards by the erring operators, raising the fairs that all the
operators may be affected as most of them are not performing to the
satisfaction of the key consumers especially in the area of drop
calls, which has become more rampant in recent times.
According to the source, the stoppage of SIM cards would not preclude
issuance of sanctions as done in 2012 as the commission is angered by
the fact that the KPIs were lowered after the sanctions but the
operators did not meet the terms of agreement it entered with the
commission to improve quality over a 12 month- period during which it
promised to meet with the KPIs.
All the operators were sanctioned N1.170 billion in May 2012 for
failing in different KPIs.