Will NCC’s sanctions on GSM operators hold water?
Bisi Olaleye ( 08057104995 )
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
When the telecoms regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC sanctioned four GSM operators on Friday over poor service delivery, the industry was shocked. The reason being that the Commission had over pampered and strongly protected thes firms.
The NCC had fined the operators a whopping sum of N1.17bn for failure to meet Key Performance Indicators on quality of services (QoS) set by it.
The four GSM companies affected were MTN Communications Limited and Emerging Market Telecoms Services Limited (Etisalat Nigeria) which were fined the sums of N360m each; while Airtel Networks Limited and Globacom Limited were fined N270m and N180m respectively.
However,the question on the lips of industry watchers is: “if the fine is not just another make believe?”.
One of them, Ibrahim Garba gathered that the wholly Nigerian brand,Globacom has become untouchable and may ask the regulator to go to hell and not pay the fine.
He noted that every citizen is patiently waiting the May 25 deadline,because there is a doubt that the sanction will be followed to the letter.
Tony Ojobo.
Meanwhile during the week,Airtel had opened a state of the art data centre to improve quality of service. While pre-counter the NCC that the network had been adjudged the best.
On its part, MTN Nigeria,has absolved itself of why the quality of service was poor in the last two months,saying, “MTN generates up to 80 percent of its power requirements.The network is one of the largest in the world running almost entirely on self generated power. And that the company expends billions of Naira annually on diesel alone”.
According to Wale Goodluck, MTN’s Corporate Services Executive, MTN continues to employ the greatest effort to overcome the infrastructural and environmental challenges that impede the delivery of consistently good quality of service.
Meanwhile industry watchers noted that the sanctions may probably be coming on the heels of the face off between NCC and the National Environment Standards Regulation and Enforcement Agency (NESREA) over who has the right to enforce rules on siting or otherwise of telecoms base stations across the country. Which the Communication Technology,Comtech Minister had mediated but not without supporting the commission.
According to Garba,the Commission may merely be trying to score a point that it is working to impress the government and possibly the Comtech Minister, Mrs.Omobola Johnson.
At a broadband forum organised recently in Lagos,all the operators shifted part of the blame to the inability of government to provide the enabling environment for telecoms growth.
Etisalat Nigeria, CEO,Steven Evans noted that quality of service is achievable if only government will provide the enabling environment in the country. However, he confessed that operators are not doing enough but are striving to be better in service delivery.
Visafone Communications Ltd boss,Sailesh Iyer that low broadband penetration in the country has compelled telecoms companies to divert focus from quality of service, to building of telecoms infrastructure like fibre cable laying, construction of base stations among others, attributing such diversion to the current poor state of telecoms’ services across networks. While equally blaming government for delays in granting rights of ways to telecoms operating companies who are eager to expand their networks through the laying of fibre cables.
Goodluck also lamented the indiscriminate vandalisation of telecommunication infrastructure around the country. He estimated that MTN suffers more than 70 cuts to its fibre on a monthly basis.
“Indeed, in April this year, MTN had cause to publish full page announcements in the newspapers, alerting the public to the growing incidence of criminal damage to MTN’s infrastructure in various parts of the country and the impact on quality of service in the country, particularly the South East, as well as Port Harcourt, and Onitsha, Lagos, Kano and Abuja”.
Goodluck lamented that the heightened insecurity in several parts of the country has limited MTN’s ability to carry out routine maintenance and emergency repairs.
However, when Daily Sun contacted the Commission’s spoke’s person Mr.Reuben Mouka on phone on the actualisation of the sanction. He explained that NCC was serious on getting optimal performance from operators.
