The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has extended the one month ban it placed on the sale of new SIM cards by operators Glo, MTN and Airtel last month over poor quality of service (QoS).
The extension comes following the expiration of the earlier one-month ban the commission announced in April in addition to a NGN647.5 million (US$4 million) fine it imposed on the three networks.
The extension was announced in Lagos by the commission’s executive commissioner of stakeholders management Dr Okwchukwu Itanyi.
“The ban on the sale of new SIM cards is on. We have not lifted the ban. It was for a month and we extended it. We have not lifted that sanction. It is still on,” Itanyi said.
He said the commission would investigate reported cases of SIM card sales by the affected operators.
“It is something that we will investigate and if any of them is found to have fallen short of our regulation, it is something we can sanction them for,” Itanyi said.
Itanyi said through the fines the NCC is making the networks aware it is unsatisfied with their QoS.
“Basically the fines are to put the operators on their toes. We are not happy with the standard of service they are giving to Nigerians. There are key performance indicators (KPIs) and whenever they fall short, we have to sanction them by imposing fines. The fine is meant to put them on notice; we are also talking to the operators because part of the problem is that their networks cannot carry the capacity to accommodate customers. We are trying to make sure that they improve their network.”
The NCC last year fined the country’s four major operators US$7.5 million after they failed to meet the minimum QoS parameters issued by the regulator.
Nigerian operators have been at loggerhead with the government and the regulator in recent months, criticising the NCC for offering to support telecoms subscribers planning to drag the networks to court over poor service quality.
The Association of Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has blamed excessive demands by state agencies for poor service quality, and said negative publicity around the Nigerian telecoms sector is bad for the country’s economy.
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