NATCOMS Demands N5,000 for 12 Years of Poor QoS

National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) has asked all GSM network operators to credit all subscribers with N5 000 as compensation for 12 years of unbearable quality of service provisioning.

In a letter to the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), the umbrella body of telecom operators in the country, NATCOMS, said that the last 12 years of GSM in Nigeria have been characterized by call failure rate, call drop rate, call set-up rate, call completion rate, billing accuracy, voice quality, network outages / downtimes, spectrum efficiency, international roaming, traffic channel congestion.

Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, NATCOMS president in the letter addressed to Gbenga Adebayo, ALTON chairman said that “Subscribers in Nigeria are requesting from all telecommunications operators in Nigeria a compensation of N5, 000 each to call any network, for 12 years (Baker’s Dozen Years) of total loyalty, storm weathering, patronage through thick and thin as well as standing by them, even in the face of poor quality service”.

The letter titled “Compensation Request of N5000 each for subscribers in Nigeria in the face of Poor Quality of Service – 12 Years After,” said that when GSM was introduced commercially in August 2001 gave subscribers on their network N6,000.00 free to call any network.

“We appreciate this gesture as the introduction of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) in Nigeria in 2001 has brought about positive changes for individuals, corporate organizations, government at all levels and the country at large. It has saved thousands of lives in emergency, created and still creating jobs for many Nigerians, eased communications within families, work places and across nations,” he said.

NATCOMS pointed out that apart from bringing Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) into Nigeria and appreciating Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it brought foreign and local investors’ confidence to the Nigerian economy and nation.

However, he said, the quality of service (QoS) profile that describes the performance evaluation of the system from the consumer perspective, using specific parameters has been poor.
“In telephony and other services, parameters used include call failure rate, call drop rate, call set-up rate, call completion rate, billing accuracy, voice quality, network outages / downtimes, spectrum efficiency, international roaming, traffic channel congestion, etc. among others,” Ogunbanjo lamented.