NCC AND POOR TELECOMS SERVICES 

 Telcom operators should do more to improve their services

The recent explanation by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) of the poor quality of telecoms services currently being experienced in major cities across the country begs the issue. “Overall, network capacity for data services across the country appears good. However, capacity issues have been observed in urban areas across all major operators,” according to the NCC while responding to the complaints of telecoms users in the country. “Capacity restrictions are concentrated in urban zones, and the impact on rural service is extremely low, reinforcing that this constraint is a localised issue tied to high-density areas.”

It is unfortunate that Nigerians have continued to experience poor service quality from the telcos despite spending trillions of naira annually on airtime. These industrial glitches have subsisted despite repeated promises to address them by the operators. We therefore urge the NCC to be more alive to their regulatory responsibility of enforcing compliance than in proffering excuses for the operators. The NCC should also address some challenges which the telcos have highlighted as being responsible for the regime of poor service quality, especially in the rural areas of our country. 

 Key among the subscribers’ complaints are connection failures, 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 three out of the four mobile network operators failed to meet the industry standards for network service in the affected states. According to industry data, telcos fell short of the four major key performance indicators: dropped call rate, call set up rate, stand-alone dedicated control channel congestion rate and traffic control channel congestion rate. 

In the past two and a half decades, 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. Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors, subscribers are experiencing poor service quality at a time the companies are raking in scandalous profits.

  Operators have always blamed poor infrastructure in the country characterised by inadequate power generation and supply as one of the reasons for the atrocious quality recorded in the sector. Operators have at different times complained about road constructions and repairs leading to cable cuts, vandalism of equipment, and other security issues. Last August, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed an official gazette designating telecoms infrastructure as Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII), with stiff penalties for whoever was caught destroying such assets. But all these do not in any way excuse them because they are normal business risks.

We urge the NCC to collaborate with the relevant agencies to ensure adequate security for telecoms facilities and engage stakeholders on the need to protect telecommunications infrastructure. The sector will continue to grapple with poor service delivery if criminal elements are not stopped from vandalising infrastructure 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 very clear: It is not just about increasing subscriber numbers but that there should be a commensurate increase in the quality of service they provide. The current level of frustrating experiences characterised by high rate of dropped calls, call interference, loss of audio and recurrent down times, are unacceptable. Nigerians are tired of constant promises from the stable of operators on the improvement of quality on their networks. They want concrete action.