Subscribers Welcome Ban On GSM Promos, Lotteries<\/p>\n
GSM subscribers on Wednesday
\nwelcome the ban placed on promos and lotteries by the industry regulator,
\nsaying they preferred quality services to the freebies being offered by the
\ntelecom operators.<\/p>\n
\u00a0President of
\nNational Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu
\nOgunbanjo, told\u00a0 newsmen in Lagos, that
\nthe ban was a \u201cwelcome development.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019It is a welcome development, although it is a mixed
\nfeeling for subscribers, because some subscribers are being empowered with the
\nlotteries and promos, and promos also bring down tariffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we cannot compromise good quality for promos;
\nwe prefer good quality services than promos. So there is nothing wrong with
\nwhat NCC had done,\u2019\u2019 Ogunbanjo said.<\/p>\n
He said that promotions could resume when the operators
\nhad stabilised the networks to the required capacities.<\/p>\n
The NATCOMS President urged the telecom service
\nproviders to do all within their capacities to offer their customers value for
\nmoney.<\/p>\n
Also, an Information Technology (IT) expert, Mr Lanre
\nAjayi, commended the NCC on the ban.<\/p>\n
Ajayi, Chief Executive of Pinet Informatics, said in
\nLagos that there was the need to reduce congestion on the networks for better
\nservice experience. He said that network congestion was as a result of higher
\ndemand than supply capacity as the networks were unable to carry the volume of
\ntraffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are two ways to address congestion on the
\nnetworks: it is either you expand the networks capacities very quickly, so that
\nthey can accommodate all the traffic.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can also reduce the traffic on them and a way of
\nreducing traffic on the networks is to limit those promotions,\u2019\u2019 said Ajayi,
\nwho is also the President, Association of Telecommunications Company of
\nNigeria.<\/p>\n
He, however, called for a \u201cslow down\u201d on the promos,
\nsaying that a complete ban might be inappropriate.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019The trend of the promo is about reducing tariffs and
\ngiving incentives for people to make more calls; so, if you don\u2019t lower those
\ntariffs beyond reasonable level, then unnecessary calls will not be made,\u2019\u2019 he
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Ajayi spoke in his personal capacity.<\/p>\n
Mr Akinwale Goodluck, MTN Corporate Services Executive,
\ntold NAN that the company just received a letter on the ban from NCC.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still reviewing it and we will make our position
\nknown in the next day or two,\u2019\u2019 Goodluck said.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the ban, Mr Gbenga Adebayo, Chairman of the
\nAssociation of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), said
\nthat the telecom umpire had exercised its statutory duty as a regulator.<\/p>\n
Our corespondent reports that the Nigerian
\nCommunications Commission (NCC) on Monday announced the ban of all promotions
\nby telecommunications operators, as well as lotteries being carried out on the
\nGSM networks.<\/p>\n
NCC Director of Public Affairs,\u00a0 Mr Tony Ojobo, said in a statement that the
\nban, which took immediate effect, would remain in force until such a time as
\nmight be determined by the Commission.<\/p>\n
He said that recently, NCC had been inundated with
\nseveral complaints from consumers and industry stakeholders against the various
\npromotions offered by telecommunications operators.<\/p>\n
According to him, the Commission carefully evaluated the
\ncomplaints received, especially against the backdrop of sustaining the
\nintegrity of the networks.<\/p>\n
He added that the complaints were evaluated in the
\ngeneral interest of the consumers and against the backdrop of the
\nsocio-economic impact of these promotions on operators and other relevant
\nstakeholders.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019Having observed that these promotions have increased the
\nnumber of minutes available to subscribers for use within a limited period of
\ntime, thereby creating congestion in the networks as subscribers try to use up
\nthe available minutes within the stipulated time.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019That on-net calls were now being offered by operators
\nat tariffs well below the prevailing inter-connect rates, thereby introducing
\nanti-competitive practices and behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019That termination of calls were becoming increasingly
\ndifficult from one network to another and overall consumer experience on the
\nnetworks has become very poor, thereby making it extremely difficult for
\nsubscribers to make calls successfully.<\/p>\n
\u2018\u2019The Commission, therefore, has banned all promotions
\nby telecommunications network operators, as well as lotteries being carried out
\non such networks,\u2019\u2019 the NCC director said.<\/p>\n
He said that the ban covered all proposed and approved
\npromotions and lotteries on which the Commission had given approval further to
\nthe Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) entered into with the National Lottery
\nRegulatory Commission (NLRC).<\/p>\n
Our Correspondent reports\u00a0 that the telecom operators affected by the
\nban include Globacom, MTN, Intercellar, Visafone, Etisalat, Airtel and
\nMultilinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Subscribers Welcome Ban On GSM Promos, Lotteries GSM subscribers on Wednesday welcome the ban placed on promos and lotteries by the industry regulator, saying they preferred quality services to the freebies being offered by the telecom operators. \u00a0President of National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, told\u00a0 newsmen in Lagos, that the ban […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-icttelecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}