Telecom operators face sanctions over poor services

Telecom operators face sanctions over
poor services
on december 17, 2013 at 2:34 am in news
By Omoh Gabriel, Business Editor, EMEKA AGINAM
& Franklin Alli
The Ministry of Communication Technology and the
Consumer Protection Council, CPC, yesterday,
charged telecoms providers in the country to work
hard and improve their service delivery to
consumers or risk fines, withdrawal of licences and
jail terms of five years.
This is just as the regulatory authority, Nigerian
Communi-cations Commission, NCC, has given
notice to MTN, GLO, Airtel, Etisalat, Swift Networks,
Intercellular, Multi-Links and Visafone of its
intention to sanction them for falling below specified
Key Performance Indicator, KPI, on quality of
service.
At a joint press briefing in Lagos, Mrs. Omobola
John, Minister of Communication Technology, said:
“NCC has announced, and I repeat here, from
December 31 any network operator that does not
meet previously agreed targets on quality of
service, QOS, indicators will be immediately
prevented from further expansion of their
subscriber base until further notice.
“In other words, they will not be allowed to sell SIM
cards to new subscribers until quality of service
targets are met.”
According to her, the ministry is aware of the
problems the operators have in terms of cost of
right of ways, damage to fibre optics and base
stations through acts of vandalisms, terrorism and
flood, including multiple taxation. Yet these excuses
are not valid for short-changing consumers.
“To tackle quality of service issues in the industry,
the ministry in partnership with the Ministry of
Works developed new Right of Way, ROW, guidelines
for Federal Government roads to enable operators
have unencumbered means of laying fibre optics,
which is critical for infrastructure development and
quality of service.
“To remove arbitrary charges and eradicate
multiple taxations that impede telecoms
development across the nation, we got state
governors and relevant authorities at the state and
federal levels to address the issue of multiple
taxations and adopt measures that will remove
arbitrary charges and eradicate multiple taxations
to enhance service delivery across the nation.
“At a closed-door meeting with Governor Fashola
last week, the ministry facilitated a landmark
agreement to remove constraints to the installation,
rollout and deployment of base stations and fibre
optic cable in the state.”