Nigeria: Telecom Operations-Minister of Inf. and Association Telecommunications Companies disagree

Minister of Communication and Information, Professor Dora Akunyuli, and Association Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) have disagreed on the modalities of operation in the telecom sector. The minister last week in Abuja bared the minds of the Federal Government and Nigerians concerning the poor quality of telecom services in the country over the 78 million subscriber-base and the huge investment over the years.

While the minister believes it is high time Nigerians began to reap dividends of the large subscriber base in terms of reduced tariff from the operators, ATCON thinks otherwise, positing that the expectation is not realisable in the short term.

 “Her concern is about protecting our investments and making sure that telephone consumers get value for their money. That is good and that is also what we want. The minister may have, however, got her facts wrong because there was no basis for her allegations and choice of words,” ATCON President, Titi Omo-Ettu, has said.

He argued that “If you were expecting the call rate per minute to reduce from its present level to N10, then you will wait a little longer while we all do a little better. These things do not come by wishful thinking. They are managed to happen.”

The minister noted that “despite the Global Economic downturn, the telecom industry has remained resilient and continued to deliver superior returns on investment,” adding that “it behooves on the operators to ensure that the aspirations and needs of their teeming customers are also adequately met.”

The minister has, however, ordered the operators to address the complaints of substandard services in the sector “within the next six months failing which, the NCC will not hesitate to invoke regulatory sanctions on erring operators.”

Reiterating ATCON’s commitment to the industry, Omo-Ettu said his members would respect the minister’s orders by carrying them out and keeping to the laws of the land.

He, however, debunked the argument that operators are not co-locating. “Of course, they are co-locating. Not less than 13 firms have been licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for co-location and a few of them are known to be doing very good business. How could they have been doing well if nobody is co-locating?” he asked.

According to him, the tariff is already being skillfully addressed by NCC which issued an interconnect rate review early. 

“I have a habit of paying about N22, 000 per month from two telephones. In the last three months my average call charge per month had reduced to about N15, 000 from one telephone.”

Akunyuli regretted that “lack of or inadequate interconnectivity remains an area of concern.” The painful thing is that all these concerns are correctable and yet they persist. Dropped calls remain a problem despite our constant appeals for you to improve on it. Poor voice signal quality and reception is becoming peculiar to Nigeria.”

- June 29, 2010 by Ajibola Abayomi

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Source:  www.independentngonline.com/DailyIndependent/Article.aspx (accessed on 30.06.10)