As the deadline for the payment of $3.9 billion fine slammed on MTN Nigeria approaches, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has warned telecom service providers that poor performance will continually attract commensurate penalties.
The Executive Vice Chairman NCC, Prof. Umaru Danbatta who gave the warning Tuesday in Port Harcourt, at the ongoing International Trade Fair said, “Let me use this opportunity to advise service providers to ensure that their networks are optimised for acceptable level of quality during this period.
“The commission intends to pay particular attention to how the service providers perform during this period and will monitor the level of their compliance against the Key Performance Indicators (LPIs), set out for quality of services rendered.”
Danbatta, who was represented by NCC’s Head of Public Affairs, Reuben Mouka also allayed the fears of mobile telephone subscribers on the insinuation that telephone equipment and infrastructure could cause health hazards, stressing that it had been dismissed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He revealed that Internet penetration was now up to 93 million, with many Nigerians fully engaged with the social media.
The NCC boss said: “Given our plans for broadband expansion, the best is yet to come. Therefore, we must be proud that our country has come a long way to be identified as one of the fastest growing in telecommunications among comity of nations.
“As the regulator of the industry, we promise to sustain the tempo of growth, for the benefit of our country and its citizens. “NCC is very consumer friendly. In fact, we rank consumers number one, in the scheme of our stakeholders, which include the government, the service providers, the media and the investors, among many others.”
He stated that the commission placed priority on the quality of service which consumers had been getting from the networks. He noted that consumers complained more about poor performance by the service providers during the festive periods, when people had to move from one location to another.
He said: “The commission is working very assiduously on all issues concerning quality of services in the industry, to ensure that the consumers are getting a fair deal in the use of their services. He stated that consumers too had roles to play on the issue bordering on quality of service, especially avoiding the use of substandard and counterfeit devices, with the availability of different types of handsets in the market.
He said some of the devices had been used and dropped in other parts of the world, while some of the handsets did not meet international benchmarks for safety and other requirements.
“They do not only pose risks to the users, but also degrade the quality of service in the networks for others. We urge all telecom consumers to be wary of the source of telecom devices, which they use,” he said.
“We also require partnership with the public in the area of protecting telecom infrastructure. Vandalism of telecom facilities, including lockout of base stations, stealing of generators and diesel from base stations affect the quality of service that can be provided in a given location. “Some local communities or councils and sometimes individuals or families bar service providers from maintaining their sites or expanding services to other locations.
“We wish to make it known to the public that the type of services available in this part of the world are unique, but can only be possible when base stations are interlinked with one another. “The excuse in some quarters that some telecom facilities may cause some health hazards has been dismissed by the WHO, which has said no known health hazard has been discovered or traced to telephone equipment or infrastructure.”
Danbatta also urged the members of the public to be alert and report any act of vandalism or willful disruptions of services to the security agencies.
While commenting on consumers’ complaint of unsolicited text messages, he noted that the commission had been engaging the service providers to introduce filters to protect subscribers. The NCC boss assured that the commission would continue to engage the service providers to ensure that the consumers did not suffer on account of subscribing for services in their networks
