The regulator should be alive to its responsibilities

Despite the approval by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) of a 50 per cent increase in telecom tariffs from last January, Nigerians have continued to groan over poor services. With frequent network outages, slow internet speed, and poor customer service, consumers feel exploited, paying exorbitant prices for services that consistently fail to meet their expectations.  Key among the subscribers’ complaints are connection failures, undelivered short message service (SMS), poor data service, fluctuating network, data roll over challenges, illegal credit deductions and uncompleted calls. The drop in service quality has been attributed to the fact that some of the mobile network operators have failed to meet the industry standards.

Indeed, available data from the sector indicate that telcos fall short of the four major performance indicators: dropped call rate, call set up rate, stand-alone dedicated control channel congestion rate and traffic control channel congestion rate. Meanwhile, poor internet connectivity amid high data costs have hampered the growth of e-commerce and the cashless policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It has also impacted negatively on several critical sectors, including education and health.

Since these industrial glitches have subsisted even with repeated promises to address them by the operators, we urge the NCC to be more alive to their regulatory responsibility. The NCC should also address some challenges which the telcos have highlighted as militating service quality, especially in the rural areas of the country. But it is unacceptable that Nigeria is being ranked poorly on all global indices regarding telecoms services at a time the companies are raking in scandalous profits.  

The mobile telecommunications sector has grown to become a very important contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The sector has expanded the broadband, internet penetration and most importantly, subscriber base in the country. Recent market figures reveal that there are over 172 million mobile subscribers on all the networks in Nigeria, accounting for a penetration rate of 87 per cent of the population. Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors, subscribers are experiencing poor service quality. 

Operators have always blamed poor infrastructure in the country characterised by inadequate power supply as one of the reasons for the atrocious quality recorded in the sector. They have at different times complained about road constructions and repairs leading to cable cuts, vandalism of equipment, and other security issues. They also cite multiple taxation, cost of maintaining equipment, etc., as huge responsibilities. But all these are normal business risks. In any case, if all these problems have not prevented them from making huge profits why should they be excuses for poor service delivery?   

We task NCC to continue to collaborate with the relevant agencies to ensure adequate security for telecoms facilities and engage stakeholders on the need to protect their infrastructure. The sector will continue to grapple with poor service delivery if criminal elements continue to vandalise telecoms facilities across the country. We also call on the federal government to urgently address the challenge of low broadband penetration.   

 Above all, the message from the NCC to the operators should be clear: It is not just about increasing tariffs but that there should be a commensurate increase in the quality of service they provide. Making a simple voice call has become a problem and holding a brief conversation has become even more burdensome. The current level of frustrating experiences characterised by high rate of dropped calls, call interference, and loss of audio have become unacceptable. Nigerians are tired of constant promises from the stable of operators on what they plan to do on the improvement of quality on their networks.  

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