Poor service: Group drags NCC, telecoms operators to court

A telecoms right group, National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), has dragged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the four GSM operators to court over poor telecoms services they rendered to subscribers in the last ten years.NATCOMS had, in August, asked the operators to compensate their subscribers for poor services rendered over the years.It threatened […]

A telecoms right group, National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), has dragged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the four GSM operators to court over poor telecoms services they rendered to subscribers in the last ten years.
NATCOMS had, in August, asked the operators to compensate their subscribers for poor services rendered over the years.
It threatened to drag them to court if they failed to pay the compensation by September ending.
Yesterday, NATCOMS’ National President, Deolu Ogunbanjo, told Daily Trust   that the group  dragged MTN, Glo, Airtel and Etisalat to a Federal Court in Lagos on Thursday, asking the court to compel them along with NCC to pay N10, 000 to each subscriber in the country.
He said NCC was joined in the suit because the regulatory agency “gets from interconnect fees operators pay to themselves so it should also pay compensation.”  
“After the expiration of our several timelines and deadlines on the same subject (compensation for poor services), we have no other choice but to institute a legal process to back up our compensation request”, he told our reporter in a phone chat.
In the suit, the group told the court that the operators and NCC should be made to pay about N130bn spread across to all the 130million subscribers in the country.
“The services rendered to the subscribers by the operators have consistently failed to meet or exceed consumer expectations and services delivery system performance criteria during all service encounters and they yield terribly poor services that are a total negation of the many dimensions of service quality otherwise known as consumer benefit package”, NATCOMS said in the suit a copy of which was emailed to our reporter yesterday.
 But Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) said it is not aware of any court case against it.
Speaking with our reporter on the condition of anonymity yesterday, an ALTON official said the group is law abiding and would meet the plaintiff in court when the case comes up for hearing.     NCC’s head of media, Reuben Mouka, did not pick calls made to his line yesterday. Mouka and the director of public affairs Tony Ojobo did not also respond to SMS sent to them.