Tag: NCC

As the year 2024 raced to an indeterminate conclusion, there was some theatre of the absurd playing out in the telecommunications industry. Tariff occupied centre stage. There was a reported tariff hike in the industry which was immediately denied by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), also reportedly.

Just before the final bell could ring on the preceding year, the Association of Licensed Telecomunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), released a blistering statement on the state of the telecommunications industry, saying the industry could start service shedding (load shedding for proper understanding, evoking the painful failure of the power sector) if the travails of the sector were not resolved urgently. Quite a handful and so much baloney, if you permit the use of that word.

My humble appeal in the immediate is for the regulator and the operators to stop playing dangerous games with a sector that approximates the possibilities of a nation if properly handled. They are both playing at the precincts of the law. I will explain.

Is tariff review expedient in the telecoms industry in the face of a fickle economy? Many positions have been canvassed. As always, the subscribers don’t want to hear of any increase having been pauperised by some of the polices of this administration. The same policies are making life very difficult for ALTON members who have raised the alarm that telecom service provisioning may grind to a halt. Nigh impossible, you may want to say but nobody wants to hear such a laced threat becasue telecoms remain the only standout achievement of a limping democracy since 1999.

The regulator takes a position that is undertandable. Standing on the pillars of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, especially in Sections 108 and 109, the regulator says it is backed by the Act to regulate tariffs and such responsibility should therefore not be rocked by those who operate in the industry. It is a cocktail of provisions.

For instance, Section 108 (1) says: Holders of individual licences shall not impose any tariff or charges for the provision of any service until the Commission has approved such tariff rates and charges except as otherwise provided in this Part.

Section 109 would add, “Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 108 of this Act, the Commission may intervene in such manner as it deems appropriate in determining and setting the tariff rates for any non-competitive services provided by a provider mentioned in Section 108 (1) of this Act for good cause or as the public may require.

Further expanding its responsibilities based on the aforementioned Sections of the Act, the regulator in November 2024, released the Guidance on the Simplification of Tariffs in the Nigerian Communications Sector ( as Ammended).

“The Commission hereby issues this Ammended Guidance for the simplification of tariff pans, bundles and promotional activities that include tariffs. This Guidance is designed to enhance transparency, improve consumer understanding and foster fair competition amongst licensees of the Commission,” the regulator stated.

The position and powers of the regulator have never been questioned by any of the industry stakehollfers. What the operators are saying, for instance, is that some of the regulations by the Commission are so stale that they have little or no impact on modern business operations that can lead to growth or renewal of the industry.

Plus the letter addressed to the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC in November 2023, titled: State of the Nigerian Telecommunications Industry – Repositioning the Industry for Sustainable Growth and Development, wherein the operators lamented the dwindling investments and fortunes of the industry, ALTON, at an End-of-Year Dinner with Industry Stakeholders on December 29, 2024, again pressed the panic button that the telecoms industry was under siege.

In the statement titled: Before the Final Call – Telecom – As Sector Under Siege, ALTON chairman, Engr Gbenga Adebayo, warned that “if nothing is done, we might begin to see in the new year grim consequences unfolding, such as Service Shedding; Operators may not be able to provide services in some areas and at some times of the day leaving millions disconnected, there will be significant economic Fallout, because businesses will suffer from lack of connectivity, stalling growth and innovation. There will also be National Ecnomic Distruption where Key sectors like security, commerce, healthcare, and education which rely heavily on telecom infrastructure, will face serious disruptions.”

The dumbest reaction to what one may describe as ALTON’s hysteria is to call it cheap blackmail, because such position obfuscates the real issues ailing the industry at the moment, from forex volatility to escalating cost of service delivering, and even from market hostility to dwindling returns, ALTON has a basketful of mixed fortunes. The members are not in a good place at all and are looking for the best possible way to deliver their predicament to government without causing chaotic response from the economy and investing public.

Quite a few voices, even from the regulatory authority, have told this writer that the industry and the regulator should stop playing games. They validate their position with the explanation that a price regulation was done for the industry a long time again which created a Price Cap of N50 and Price Floor of between N19, after a review over a decade ago which increased the mobile termination rate (MTR). They explain that once a band of between N19 and N50 was created, the operators had the latitude to play within the band, raise and reduce tariff if they like without reverting to the NCC for any approval.

“We don’t set prices. What we do is set a Cap and a Floor. Within the space, the operators can play. There is a tariff regulation since about 2005. You have not reached the Cap, why are you asking for an increase,” an NCC source told this writer.

“Once a Floor and a Ceiling have been put in place, playing wthin the band doesn’t need the approval of the NCC,” another source affirmed.

Perhaps in trying to enjoy this regulatory latitude, the operators in 2022 requested for, and got a 10 percent  tariff increase on Voice and Data services from the NCC. The Commission reversed itself after a few days, saying the priority of the Minister Isa Pantami was to protect the citizens and ensure justice for all stakeholders. An NCC source told this writer that the reversal was unilaterally done by the minister who coerced the regulator to receive the fall.

At the time, NCC lost the voice to proclaim the provisions of the Act in Sections 108 and 109 which have no tolerance for the meddlesomeness of a minister or even the President of the Republic if he wanted to supervene. The operators did not also test the provisions of the Act in the Court.

One operator confessed in trepidation that “it’s already very tough doing business in Nigeria. We don’t want the government to come after use with all its powers.”

Here are a few lessons for me and I think also for the government. Some businesses are already operating in fear in Nigeria in spite of President Tinubu’s effort to attract investors to our dear nation. The source of that fear must be conquered in order to create a conducive business environment. The NCC must abide by the Act and do the needful for the telecoms industry and it’s operators without resorting to puerile emotions about protecting citizens. Afterall, some of the investors in these operations  are also citizens who with their efforts are trying to promote the good of the land.

In the New Year, the regulator must look beyond emotions to do a good job. This is wishing you all a lovely and more peaceful and productive 2025.

I have had the unenviable opportunity of living in two states and the Federal Capital Territory in the past three months. All the time, my phone is my most prized item because it connects me to my base and my family. It is really cool to be able to reach out and be reached at any time, but one can confess here, very painfully, that it has been a drag, so frustrating that you try to confirm to yourself that GSM operations in Nigeria have climbed over two decades.

That is the real story. So when the calls refuse to connect, when the calls drop when they connect at all, everything is attributed to network failure or network congestion which ought not to have been after two decades. But that is where we are in the country; instead of constant and gradual improvement, we witness debilitating decline and begin to make promises for a better tomorrow that may never come.

What is the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) doing, they ask me. Things have never been this bad, they conclude.

Things have been worse, if you permit me to aggravate your frustrations. But that was pre-2000 when the nation hardly had phones. But the phones came;  instead of building on recorded and globally recognised progress, things have progressed more in error, further exacerbated by unstable economy and even more unpredictable regulation and policies.

The signals are not good in most parts of Abuja, in significant parts of Delta State and in Edo State. Who should be doing something, they ask. Simple answer. It is the government; it’s the regulator and the operators forming the third leg of the significant trio. The subscribers are just there waiting to receive good services which they have either paid for (pre-paid) or willing to pay for (post paid). But the case is much more complex, far beyond what is visible for the eyes to see or even just roll up into a puzzle, in the realm of incomprehensibility.

Look at it this way. The government is in dire straits and needs more money, so they ask the tax men to go after everybody, including the mobile operators, especially with the kindergarten reasoning that the operators have too much money. The regulator is part of government and does not have the gravitas to tell the government that too much tax can kill the industry. While the ministry is spinning one policy after the other, some so totally irrelevant if not oppressive to the industry.

So, who should be doing something. As the regulator, the NCC should be accountable to the nation on what happens in the industry. Unfortunately, after a brilliant start over two decades ago, the regulator has found itself struggling for a place in the ladder of importance.

In trying to give a respectable picture of the indsutry it regulates, the NCC said somewhere, “The industry has been a driving force in the nation’s economic transformation, contributing significantly to GDP growth, job creation, and innovation across multiple sectors. By enhancing connectivity, the industry has enabled businesses, from agriculture to finance, to operate more efficiently, reach wider markets, and improve productivity.”

Something sweet to say any way. But at the moment, the NCC is struggling for reinvention in order to get regulation going. Instead of quality of service with data from the operators which should meet the targets set by the regulator, the regulator has introduced a new approach which they call Consumer Experience, which has more to do with “a composite index that reflects how consumers feel about the services they are receiving from telecom operators.”

From the look of things, so much is expected from the operators but they too have their bucket of complaints. They complain of too much pressure from the regulatory environment, including some kinds of financial demands and other pressures that make doing good business in Nigeria a mirage.

Even before this concept of Consumer Experience was hatched, the operators, since 2023, already complained of myriad of macroeconomic challenges that were making life difficult for them. And of course that will rubbish whatever euphoria that should have been linked with whatever experience the consumer should have.

They include: the upward trajectory in the inflation rate from 11.98% in 2019 to 21.34% in 2022 and currently 27.33% in 2023; rapid devaluation of the Naira eviidenced by the recent upward rate of 68.5% from N461/$ in December 2022 to N777/$ as at the end of September 2023; and sustained rise in energy prices with diesel currently retailing at an average price of N1,004/litre from N250/litre in January 2022.

These were 2022/23 figures. The story has since changed, confounding the operators even more. Currently, the Naira is valued at N1656  to 1 US Dollar; inflation stands at 34.5%, while a litre of diesel sells for N1,200. These figures fly in the face of whatever the industry, including MTN, Airtel, Glo, Etisalat and indeed, ATCON, had complained about.

The operators also observed then that despite these adverse economic headwinds, the telecommunications industry remains the only sector that has yet to effect any general tariff increase for its services in the last 5 years due to regulatory and political restrictions limiting the MNOs’ ability to react to the increased cost of doing business.

They equally complained of bureaucracy and increasing over regulation of the industry which didn’t use to be the story of the sector. But they can observe changes that are adverse and the industry is reeling in pain. The Ministry, on the other hand, has been more involved in promoting new policies when not instigating new Bills at level of the parastatals.

The consequential effect is that the indsutry is grappling with lots of problems which coalesce into quality of service that is far below the acceptable threshold. It is pervasive and needs to be confronted frontally.

As the year fades, it is pertinent to observe that the regulator needs to  take more concerted measures to address the problems facing the telecomunications industry. This writer is aware of the Commission’s encouragement to states to accept its version of right of way (RoW) which compels operators to roll out service across the states of the federation at zero cost. The ripple effects of such move can only be interpreted by the plethora of jobs that will be created in such states and the development that can follow.

For the time being, telecom services across states are very poor. It’s such a dreary way to end the year.

Some folks who read this syndicated column every Wednesday have asked me at one point or the other, what beef do you have with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)? Not any, I would always say, although beef is not the best source of protein for a senior citizen. So, beefing can be an invitation to trouble.

I shouldn’t anyway. But having experienced the system from without and within and now without again, as a journalist and regulator and now a columnist, there is still so much fire burning within, like sulphur, to rouse the regulator from what I consider the stupor of underwhelming performance, to once again attain that dizzying height of achievement where it once belonged. It is a history experiencing the rituals of vicissitudes where the privileged helmsman must strike the iron when it is hottest. There is always a commitment to alert him to that privileged opportunity.

Last week, the regulator proved it can take some criticism, no matter how acerbic, even more than a knife to the guts, when a source within the Commission demonstrated considerable equanimity to explain some considered actions and decisions by the regulator that may percolate in achievements, and initiate a renaissance for an industry struggling at the tethers.

That takes some boldness, which my source explained, is stoked by a commitment to transparency. Oh, some hard decisions!

After a rebasing of the telecommunications subscriber base in Nigeria, the figures plunged from 219,304,281 in March 2024, to 153,323,316 in September 2024. This is a clear case of irony. When our dear nation rebased her economy in 2014, the GDP fortunes suddenly increased by about 89 percent, propelling Nigeria to overtake South Africa as the largest economy in the continent. Yes. 2014 was when that word, rebase, gained currency in our dear nation with far-reaching effects still remembered wishfully today.

Ironically, some would wish for a complete lobotomy of the regulator’s recent action from our reasoning system. So, what happened? Two things – one hard decision and the completion of the NIN-SIM Linkage Policy of the Federal Government.

The hard decision, which has been trapped in the vortex of politics, was the calculation of telecom subscriber statistics in Nigeria with population figures from NPC. “In January this year, the NCC revised its telecommunications statistics to reflect Nigeria’s updated population estimate of 216,783,381 as projected by the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC) in 2022. The adjustment replaced the previously used 2017 population estimate of 190m. With this adjustment, Nigeria’s teledensity dropped from 115.63 percent to 102.30 percent for the month of September 2023, and broadband penetration declined from 45.47 percent to 40.85 percent in the same period, even as active voice and internet subscriptions showed modest growth,” my source confided.

This is a significant development. For long, that decision was waiting to be taken but nobody dared. It was once rumoured that a couple of regulators were too afraid to take such figures to the Villa – the hype name for Nigeria’s seat of government, saying they couldn’t predict the reaction of politicians in government. The source said the NCC management, under the leadership of Dr Aminu Maida, has put the figures in the open not only to demonstrate transparency but also to supply realistic statistics that can foster economic planning to attain expected growth. Someone had to take a hard decision, and Maina has done so.

The other supervening factor which brought a reality check on telecommunications industry statistics, is the successful completion of the NIN-SIM Linkage Policy of the government. The exercise which began in December 2020 in a welter of controversies, came to a confusticating end on September 14, 2024, by which time the regulator said “all SIMs operating in Nigeria are linked to a valid and verified NIN. Over 154m lines have been linked.”

The NIN-SIM Linkage Policy was blighted from the scratch mostly by noticeable incapacity from the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) which seemed swamped by a plethora of data coming from the operators and other sources. With the process completed, the regulator seems to have seized the opportunity to introduce new metrics for Accountability and Transparency in Industry Regulation – a seeming amalgam that provides solutions to so many industry challenges, including: service reliability, consumer satisfaction, regulatory compliance, network rollout, resilience and reliability and even seeming minuscule issues like data bundling and marketing, which must now be explained in plain terms to the subscribers.

The conclusion of the NIN-SIM Linkage Policy and the activation of the newly introduced Accountability and Transparency in Industry Regulation may have thrown up something overwhelmingly befuddling that may not have been properly captured yet or even understood. Placed on the dashboard of the new industry template, a particular operator lost as much as 40m lines, which may be more than the market value of some African countries.

“One Mobile Nework Operator was found to have incorrectly reported around 40m subscribers as active, despite the absence of any revenue-generating activity over a 90-day period. This was an indirect violation of the Commission’s guidelines for determining active subscribers and led to an inflated report of the operator’s subscriber base, thereby skewing industry statistics,” my source revealed.

Skewing industry statistics is a pretty troubling phrase but my source is so excited that he doesn’t seem to mind, as there seems to be some interesting initiatives taking root at the Commission. Oh, just like the regulator waking up to the reality of expectations!

But this I observed. There is a lot of talk about the expectations from the operators by the government, regulator and the consumers but less emphasis on the challenges faced by the same operators who have not been permitted any tariff increase for well over a decade. Yet they remain a critical stakeholder in the entire value chain, so how is the regulator pursuing the operators’ interests as well?

My source was ready. “It’s top of the mind for the EVC. His own view is that it’s about the survival of the industry but only ensuring that processes are followed to arrive at cost reflective charges during the determination process.”

So many expectations are crammed within a little burst of enthusiasm. This writer reminded his source of a little story from venerated playwright and dramatist, Ola Rotimi, who once said, the meat of the antelope is very sweet but what happens while the meat is being cooked? What do you eat?

I tried to rephrase the question for my source. How do you ensure the survival of the operators who are already running losses while a cost reflective determination for the industry is being awaited? I hope there can be a spontaneous response from the smouldering fresh enthusiasm within the Commission. And my prayer is that the response brings immediate relief to the operators who are severely troubled and challenged at the moment by factors beyond their control.