Nigeria: NCC Bans Promotions By GSM Operators



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Leadership (Abuja)

8 February 2008
Posted to the web 8 February 2008

Peter Ailuorio
Lagos

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday wielded the sledge hammer when it literaly dropped the bombshell banning any kind of promotions by GSM operators nationwide.

A statement signed by the head, public affairs of the regulatory body, Mr. Dave Imoko, said: "Following the results from latest tests with the newly acquired GSM QoS Testing Equipment, the Nigerian Communications Commission, (NCC) hereby issues fresh directives stopping the GSM operators from embarking on promotions of any kind."


The directive affects ongoing promotions or any new promotions yet to be embarked upon by any of the operators as the result of the tests carried out in some parts of the country has been very unsatisfactory.

"The commission stated that the level of performance, of the

GSM networks in some parts of the country where tests were already completed "were poor and unacceptable," adding that "all the major GSM operators were grossly in default on several key performance indicators for ascertaining quality of service.

The key parameters on which the networks are being tested, the NCC said, include: traffic channel congestion, call completion rates, call setup success rates, call drop rates, percentage of failed calls, call setup time, speech quality index and handover success rates.

The GSM operators are expected to attain or exceed threshold performance levels for these key indicators with respect to what the commission has benchmarked for each parameter.

The commission's technical team has recently carried out QoS tests in Kano, Bauchi and Kaduna States. In Bauchi State, some members of the Senate committee on communications witnessed the test being carried out by a technical team of the NCC.

As part of its strategy in 2008 to tackle the issue of quality of service from consumers' perspective, the commission has fully deployed its newly acquired GSM Quality of Service Test equipment to regularly monitor the performance of the operators in all states of the federation.

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The test will enable the commission measure the various performance levels of the operators for each month as it prepares to implement the payment of compensation to subscribers affected by poor quality of service from any of the operators.

The commission will also be publishing the details of the test results obtained with a view to informing subscribers of the individual network performances of the various service providers.

The NCC is the independent national regulatory authority for the telecommunications industry in Nigeria. The Commission is responsible for creating an enabling environment for competition among operators in the industry as well as ensuring the provision of qualitative and efficient telecommunications services throughout the country.