NCC To Determine Call Determination Rates For SNS Providers

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it has set up a committee to review the Special Numbering Service (SNS) segment of the telecoms sector to determine new call termination rates as it moves to ensure sustainability and profitability.
The NCC disclosed this at its stakeholders’ forum on the ‘Determination of call termination rate for special numbering service providers in Nigeria’ in Abuja, recently.
According to the Director, Policy, Competition and Economic Analysis at NCC, Yetunde Akinloye, the NCC has received several complaints from the SNS licencees regarding the perceived high rates and charges by mobile network operators who are owners of the major infrastructure being used by SNS providers to deliver services to end users.
“The commission had observed that the uptake of the numbers has been abysmally poor, contrary to NCC’s expectation as the sectoral regulator”, she said.
She said that the NCC had set up a committee to do a complete review of the SNS market segment, research similar markets in other jurisdictions for benchmarking, and determine the appropriate call termination rates.
She said that the commission was bothered about the perceived high cost of delivering services to end-users by SNS players.
“This meeting is convened to discuss issues pertaining to the special numbering services segment of the Nigerian telecommunications market”, she said.
Meanwhile, Akinloye said that the NCC , statutorily, is the custodian and manager of the toll-free and non-toll-free numbers licences, on behalf of the Federal Government.