Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) has intensified actions towards regulating the Value Added Service (VAS) segment, short codes allocations and operations, of the telecoms sector, all important aspects of service delivery to mobile network customers.

A mobile value-added service (VAS) is associated with non-core services, or all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions.

According to industry statistics, mobile VAS is currently worth over $200 million annually with huge potential to accelerate to $500 million in the next five years.

Actually, NCC said its findings showed that the exponential growth in the Nigerian telecoms industry in the last 12 years has given rise to the evolution of the mobile phone from a device just to support communications requirements to a smart platform with the capacity to provide a plethora of service.

The identifiable services include mobile entertainment, caller-tune, ring-back tunes, music download, news breaks, Biblical and inspirational quotes, flights information, tele-marketing, among others.

But, evident in the system is the operations of ‘data miners’ and network hackers who are threatening the good intentions of mobile value added service providers and mobile network operators that have seen mobile VAS as palliative measure to the dwindling average revenue per user (ARPU) in the voice services owing to increased competition.

Same time, NCC expressed concerns that most of the operators are negligent of the basic operational guidelines which call for stricter regulatory framework.

Heralding the imperatives of proper regulations of the operations, Dr. Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman of NCC, said that, the Commission has witnessed, “some practices and behaviours in the VAS segment which as individuals subscribers and as industry regulator have given us a lots of concern”.

Juwah who was represented at the session by Dr. Okechukwu Itanyi, executive commissioner, Stakeholders Management (NCC) said disclosed that the Commission has received avalanche of complainants from subscribers regarding forceful activation of various value added services by operators without explicit consent. “Worse still, these services are auto-renewal resulting to perpetual lock-in of subscribers by the VAS providers.

“We have witnessed high level of tele-marketing, especially unsolicited messages by mobile network operators/value added service operators soliciting for subscription for their services most times constituting nuisance to consumers,” the EVC added.

He said that the Commission deemed it necessary to have an interactive session with the VAS providers, mobile network operators and other critical stakeholders to identify ways of tacking the pressing issues.

Nodding in agreement, Mr. Efosa Idehen, head, Compliance and Enforcement Department of the NCC, said that, indeed the participatory regulation has become entrenched in their corporate culture, as a means of soliciting industry response to a host of issues.

“This is to ensure to ensuring that whatever policies and regulations we come up with, enjoy wide acceptance within the industry,” he noted.

In a contribution, Mr Simon Aderinlola, national coordinating consultant, WATSPAN, said that unsolicited messages and other challenges identified in the system are solvable.

He advised that whatever criteria to be adopted by a working committee on the regulatory framework should take into cognizance the protection of local businesses and local content, hinting that foreign firms have devised means of monopolizing the system, and sometimes with hidden agenda.

Aderinlola also identified the guilty parties in the supposedly spam text messages or unsolicited texts to include in-country VAS providers, in-country Bulk SMS retailers, retail partners of international operators and MVNOS, International SMS termination partners engaged by telecos, among others.

He disclosed that WATSPAN is working towards developing a portal through which mobile subscribers can express their grievances.