Natcomms Berates Operators over High Tariff

National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria (Natcomms) has appealed to telecom operators to consider tariff reduction as requested by federal government.
Mr. Deolu Ogunbanjo, president, Natcomms, expressed support for the directive by Professor Dora Akunyili, Minister of Information & Communications for operators to reduce call tariff. According to him the association has made several oral and written representations to Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Federal Ministry of Communications, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency on the need for affordable services from the operators.
He explained that the current tariff regime for GSM voice calls, where operators charge between N42-N48 per minute (without promotion conditions) during the peak period for off-net calls, and between N30-N40 per minute during the peak period for on-net calls.
“Under the current tariff regime for GSM SMS, the operators charge between N15-N20 per SMS (without promotion conditions) provided the short message is not more than 160 characters, for both peak and off peak periods whilst, the CDMA SMS, the operators charge between N10-N15 per SMS (without promotion conditions) provided the short message is not more than 160 characters.
We consider the various tariff regimes stated above as very high. Worse still, the high tariff regime for SMS has discouraged the effective utilization of the SMS platform as a means of interactive communication among Subscribers,” he said.
He added that the under-utilization of the SMS platform is principally responsible for the network congestion, because, if the SMS platform is optimally utilized, many voice calls would have employed the medium of SMS, and the voice call platform would have been less congested because each SMS uses an insignificant band-width of the system capacity when compared with voice call.
Ogunbanjo noted that NCC organized a stakeholders’ forum in the third quarter of last year, where issue of reduction in the cost of Short Message Service (SMS) was discussed, but regretted that up till now, no telecoms Operator has reduced the cost of SMS. Currently, the cost of SMS with promotion conditions cost between N5 to N10 while without any promotion conditionality still cost N15 per SMS of 160 characters.