NCC grants MTN, 9mobile approval for national roaming service

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has granted approval for two mobile network operators (MNOs) to carry out trial on National Roaming Service for a period of three months, beginning from August 1 and ending on October 31.

Ikechukwu Adinde, NCC Director, Public Affairs, said this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja.

Mr Adinde named the two telecoms operators as Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) Nigeria and the Emerging Markets Telecommunication Service Limited (EMTS), trading as 9Mobile in Nigeria.

He said that with the approval, the EMTS and MTN are expected to configure their networks to begin test and simulation for customer experience.

“The trial approval covers a few Local Government Areas (LGAs), designated as the National Roaming geographic area, in Ondo State,” he said.

Mr Adinde said that Roaming Service will enable a mobile subscriber to automatically make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or access other services when travelling outside a particular network geographical area by utilising the network coverage of other operators.

He quoted NCC Executive Vice Chairperson, Umar Danbatta, saying that “the primary objective of the National Roaming Service trial was to encourage network resource sharing among operators.”

“This will lead to operational expenditure (OPEX) optimisation and capital expenditure (CAPEX) efficiencies leading to freeing up of resources to expand mobile network coverage to unserved and underserved communities across the country.

“This will lead to improved Quality of Service (QoS) delivery to subscribers.

“The successful implementation of the trial will enable EMTS subscribers to access MTN network service within the National Roaming trial geographical area without the need for an MTN Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card, ” he said.