Poor network: Will NCC fine telecoms operators next month?

Poor performance may earn the big four telecoms operators in the country N1.17billion fine next month if NCC make good its threat. For their failure to “reach the pass mark” in the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) set for them by the regulator, MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat may get the stick early February, according to […]

Poor performance may earn the big four telecoms operators in the country N1.17billion fine next month if NCC make good its threat. For their failure to “reach the pass mark” in the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) set for them by the regulator, MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat may get the stick early February, according to a source within NCC.
But some industry watchers say they doubt this so much as NCC can only bark and may not do anything after all.
The NCC source had told Daily Trust in Abuja last week that apart from paying millions of naira as fine, the operators may also be barred from selling new SIM cards from February.
He said though NCC had early vowed to sanction the operators on January 2 the commission decided to measure their performance for this month as a last warning before slamming the fine on them.
“If they perform below standard the stick may be wielded on them late January or latest early February”, he had said.
According to him, NCC had already written to the four operators on the impending fine and the amount they are likely to pay as penalty.
“The details of the penalties already communicated to the different operators indicate that MTN Nigeria and Etisalat, may pay the sum of N360million each while Airtel may pay the sum of N270m and Globacom may pay a penalty in the sum of N180m”, the NCC official said.
He said: “Any of the KPI’s failed  by January would also warrant stoppage of sale of SIM cards by the offending operators. 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”
The minister of Communication Technology had said in December that the federal government might prosecute telecoms operators over poor telecoms service being rendered in the last four months of 2013.
Minister Omobola Johnson said at a joint press conference with NCC and Consumer Protection Agency (CPC) officials in Lagos that FG would early this year begin the process of prosecuting and sanctioning erring telecommunications service providers for delivering poor quality service to their subscribers.
According to Johnson, government can no longer watch consumers bear the burden of poor quality service delivery by the telecoms operators.
“Federal government will no longer condone poor service delivery to subscribers. It’s no longer business as usual and operators must rise up to address the current poor state of quality service delivery. I am inundated with complaints about quality of service and the seemingly uncaring attitude of our telecoms operators to resolve the issues on a regular basis”, she had said.
She said though government is not unmindful of issues facing the operators such as issue of multiple or arbitrary taxation on ICT infrastructure, destruction of infrastructure through deliberate vandalism and terrorism, flood operators,  “they can do better in delivering acceptable quality of service which they are clearly not doing.”
On her part, the Director General of CPC, Mrs Dupe Atoki said operators also risk prosecution and jail terms of five years if investigation currently on-going reveal that they have deliberately short changed Nigerians in poor service delivery.
“CPC can make orders in the interest, and protection of consumers and disobedience of those others is also criminalised by law. While NCC can impose fines on an offending operator, CPC can in addition commit such recalcitrant offenders to jail terms for contravening any consumer protection enactment”, she said.
Also, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Eugene Juwa, said the regulator had put all the telecom providers on notice since 18 months ago and that if by this month any telecoms operator offer poor quality in the areas of usage irregularities, inaccurate billing, unsolicited SMS, loss of airtime, network insecurities characterized by uncontrollable interruption on networks by unidentifiable third parties, would be sanctioned
The sanctions, according to him, include being suspended from selling SIM cards to new subscribers and to being prevented from further expansion of their subscriber base until further notice.
He said most of the operators have been loading up with impunity, more than what their capacity could absorb adding that a new parameter has been set and has been brought to their notice and must be met by this month (January).
NCC had also said at a forum in Abuja in December that 50, 000 subscribers sent complaints about poor telecoms service to its Consumer Affairs Bureau almost every day.
It promised then to wield the stick on the operators but it is yet to do that about five weeks after making the threat.
This is why a telecom engineer, who pleaded anonymity, doubted if NCC can punish the operators. According to him, the operators are doing what they do because of the complicity of NCC.
He said if NCC would punish the operators they would have done so long before the public outcry about the poor service. “Given the operators another grace of one month is like telling a thief to steal one month time before you arrest him. No sane law enforcement officer will do that”.
However, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) said they should not be blamed for the poor telecoms network in the country. They said rather blaming them, subscribers should instead blame some states in the country for deliberately frustrating the roll-out of telecoms infrastructure which would have tremendously improved the services provided by telecoms operators.
According to an ALTON official, who spoke to Daily Trust yesterday,  “some governors put all manner of stumbling blocks on the way of operators, making spurious financial demands.”
He said the charges demanded by the states are usually outrageous and a huge source of disincentive to roll out.
He said: “But essentially, the challenge we have is that of quality of service. Quality of service is basically infrastructure challenge, it’s a capacity challenge. “Tha implies that the capacity, the infrastructure, cannot cope with the demand and supply equation. The supply side is infrastructure which is not keeping pace with the demand of the consumer.
“There are some things that we have identified as reasons for this. There is bottleneck in infrastructure and the issue of multiple taxations. The second one is vandalism; the third one is the issue of right of way. At the Federal Government level, there is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Com-Tech Ministry and Ministry of Works that for all federal highways, they have agreed to dig once and for all. They have also agreed that anywhere road infrastructure is going to be built from the time that MoU is signed there will be provision so that people don’t go digging.”
But he said the problem is more pronounced at the state and local government levels where all manners of charges are imposed on operators for citing base transmission stations (BTS).
He said until these problems are addressed, poor service will continue to be experienced in the country.
Telecoms subscribers, who spend their hard earned money to stay connected with their phones, will however find it difficult to understand with the operators. All what they want to hear now, according to Deolu Oginbanjo, a telecoms right activist, is quality network.