Primary ICT industry stakeholders who gathered recently in Lagos believes that that the telecoms sector has witnessed series of incursions into the regulatory space by other agencies including state and local governments which currently impedes the operations of the operators.
During the quarterly seminar organized by Nigeria Information and Communications Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA), Olusola Teniola, President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) had made the submission.
Teniola, who was represented by Engineer Tony Nwosu, Vice President, ATCON, said some of the agencies, especially from the State Governments, impose levies and fees on service providers for location towers, the right of way, and make other laws that govern infrastructure in their domains.
According to him, “Regulation” was not known in the telecommunications sector until the Nigerian Government fully loosened the sector over ten years ago. However, the need for regulating the telecoms sector was initially not lucid as it was only NITEL that was charged with the sole responsibility for providing telecommunications services for Nigerians.
“The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria painstakingly made several presentations to Federal Government on the urgent need to liberalize the sector for maximum benefits (Revenue Generation, FDI, and Employment Generation). The continuously focussed advocacy of ATCON gave birth to the robust modern telecommunications industry that we have in Nigeria today”, the ATCON President said.
He said, should over-regulation continues, poor Quality of Service (QoS) may persist, as the acts establishing these agencies have sometimes led to indiscriminate shut down of base stations and operator sites, leading to disruption of services.
He emphasised that the issue of multiple taxations and concurrent regulation in the telecoms industry has been a source of concern to industry players and a major source of friction between service providers and the intervening agencies; while in some cases, the matters have ended up in the law courts, and till date the issues appear unresolved.
“The Nigerian Communications Commission is empowered to establish minimum Quality of Service (QoS) standards in service delivery for the telecommunications industry. These QoS standards ensure that consumers continue to have access to high-quality telecommunications service by setting basic minimum quality levels for all operators.
“The rules define the lower and upper bounds of acceptability of such technical issues as transmission rates, error rates, call completion rates, etc. and commercial consumer issues such as access to customer care centers, billing integrity and other characteristics that can be measured and improved.
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“There is no doubt that the incessant shut down of telecoms facilities by multiple regulatory have an adverse effect on the quality of services offered by operators in the industry. The outages occasioned by these shut downs negatively impact the quality of service indices such as reduced call completion rates, increased call drop rates, increased voice quality impairment, and quality transmission impairment. The overall implication of these is heightened consumer dissatisfaction with the quality of services provided by operators,” he said.
According to him, “The incessant over regulation of the Nigerian telecommunications sector may lead to the inability of players in that industry to roll out services promptly to meet the targets in the National Broadband Plan.
Speaking on the way forward, he said, “There is the need for NCC to strengthen its relationships with each state of the federation and their relevant agencies to ensure a smooth operating environment for the delivery of telecoms services.
“Greater collaboration of industry associations and stakeholders to provide a favorable operating business climate for telecoms companies operating in Nigeria. Increased enlightenment and awareness on the importance of telecommunications services to national growth and development; and the federal government should collaborate with state and local governments on the issue of tax harmonization”.
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