NCC threatens to sanction telecom operators

NCC says it will punish erring telecoms that do not improve their services by the September deadline.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it has concluded plans to invoke another round of sanctions on telecommunication operators, from September, if poor quality of service remains the same.

The Commission’s Director of Public Affairs, Tony Ojobo, said this in an interview, on Thursday, in Abuja.

He said that at the time of the last sanctions, operators made presentations on the issue of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) at the meeting with the commission.

Mr. Ojobo said that, at the meeting, the commission agreed on a medium base line of KPI, that operators were to begin to work on progressively, until they meet the commission’s ultimate KPI.

He added that the NCC gave the service providers a deadline of September to ensure a progressive improvement on the poor quality of service.

“But at the meeting, it was agreed that by September if the quality of service remained as it was, then the commission would invoke another sanction,”  Mr. Ojobo said. “We are noticing some improvement in some of the networks in term of quality of service.”

“It is not really what it should be but I think it is better than what we have two months ago as at the time of the fine,” he added.

According to him, the operators wrote to NCC to update the commission on what they had done so far to improve on the quality of service.

He said that the commission noticed that there were number of networks that were expanding and also upgrading their networks.

Mr. Ojobo said that the operators are putting in new technology to address the challenges that had resulted to the poor quality of service in the country.

According to him, the issue of call drops have reduced.

“That is an indication that there is some improvement, NCC does depend on personal or consumers experience to determine whether there is improvement until the commission undergoes a drive test,” he said.

Mr. Ojobo explained that a drive test is when the commission’s monitoring team drive through the city with their equipment which take the frequency reading and later analyse with the reading that would be taken from the premises of the service providers.

He said that the commission has its independent consultants that have carried out the drive test across the country.