NCC Urges Synergy With Telecom Operators

The Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC)  has sought for a working synergy with the mobile network  operators in the country on improvement of services provided to consumers.
The Executive Vice chairman of NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta, made this known in a statement  issued on Monday  in Abuja  and signed by the Director, Public  Affairs of NCC Mr Tony Ojobo.
Danbatta said that the commission  is worried by the degenerating  quality of service provided by  Mobile  Network Operators (MNOs) and other  service providers in the country.
The NCC boss declared that 2017 is the year of the consumer, stressing that poor services as provided by the service providers in the sector will necessitate  the commission  to declare a state of emergency on their quality of service.
He added that all hands should be on deck for telecom consumers  to have a fresh lease to high  quality of service, urging the service providers to treat the consumers with dignity.
Danbatta  further  explained that NCC had put measures  in place to  check  and monitor quality of service on various networks in accordance  with the commission’s eight-point    agenda to put the consumer first.
He said that there must be a synergy between the service providers  and the commission interacting regularly  with government  at different levels as part of the measures to deal with the poor  quality of service, adding that network operators and  co-location service operators  should provide  suggestions on how to address the challenges in the telecom sector.
The NCC boss said that  NCC had  appealed to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to make  forex available  to network operators,  stressing that  the appeal to CBN by NCC was part of  measures to cushion the situation  and ameliorate  the recurrent  inaccessibility to foreign  exchange by operators.
However, NCC had listed the  challenges faced by operators to include, Right of Way (ROW), Force Majeure, difficulty in acquiring  new cell sites, multiple  taxation and regulation, vandalism, power  supply, among others.
Also that poor quality of service are witnessed by the consumers in the country due to fibre cut, community related issues stressing that in October  2016, operators experienced 175 cuts,  November 2016  180 fibre cuts and December 2016, 103 fibre acts across.