The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has described as unacceptable the quality of services being offered in the nation’s telecoms sector. According to the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, the lingering situation about poor service quality in the telecoms sector, has continued to pose serious concern to the commission.
He said this while presenting a paper at the second yearly stakeholders’ conference of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), held at the University of Lagos.
While he said that the service quality currently being offered is not acceptable, he explained that the commission had gone through the rigours of several meetings with operators in order to address the issue. He said it was proper to let the public know that the regulator is not complacent about the situation.
The NCC boss listed the challenges to include inadequate power supply, multiple taxation and regulations, vandalisation of telecoms infrastructure, right of way challenges, and infrastructure deficit among others.
“Only the elimination of some or all of these will provide the critical success factors in finally eradicating service quality challenges,” Juwah said.
He said during the public hearing held by the National Assembly in 2008, power was considered to have contributed more than 40 per cent to poor service quality issues.
ThisDay reported telecommunications depend on power to run 24/7. Just as individuals in Nigeria generate their power, so has telecommunications services generated much of the power it utilises. The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, (ATCON), has put the estimated cost of running two generators in each of the over 25,000 base stations sites in Nigeria today at about N5 billion monthly. ATCON says while Nigeria’s service provider spends 80 per cent of its operating expenses (OPEX) on power generation, in Malawi, it is just about 5 per cent. This captures the explanation as the service providers would have been in a position to channel more resources to tackling the issues of service quality, Juwah said.
On multiple taxation and regulation, Juwah said: “We have a very nagging issue of regulations and taxes awaiting the telecom operators at different levels of government. Some of these regulations are made outside of the purview of the telecom regulator.
“There are states and local governments where telecom infrastructure is seen as fertile ground for improving internally generated revenue as these infrastructures must be available to make services possible. In some areas, state governments, local governments, or even some federal government agencies have had to force a close down of base stations with the implication of disconnecting many localities from the network thereby adding to the challenge.”