Telecom Sector under Pressure, Where is the NCC?

The telecom sector is under pressure from a number of sources: interconnection indebtedness; poor quality of services; vandalism; multiple taxation; as well as regulation among others.

For one, the over N20 billion interconnection indebtedness among telecoms operators in the country is already causing a rift and serious threat to healthy competition in the industry.

The controversial huge debt profile and seemingly lack of measures to address the issue is tearing the fabrics of the telecoms sector.

Elsewhere, the worsening quality of telecoms services provisioning had made it difficult to make smooth calls across networks or even within same networks.

Dropped calls; call diversion; weak calls; poor voice clarity; and delay in SMS delivery are common place.

In addition, the sustained attacks by Boko Haram, the Islamic sect on telecommunications' facilities as well as acts of vandalism pose dangers to investments in the sector.

There are also problems of multiple taxes; and the notoriously unreliable public power supply.

Operators are subjected to multiple taxes from all tiers of governments who see telcos are milk cows which must be milked dry.

Some states, ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of government even employ extra-legal means to coerce operators to submit to the payment of illegal taxes

As if that is not enough, telcos have all turned to independent power producers to power their operations  while public power supply is standby.

The power supply is like the nerve, in fact, the engine of production.

The near absence of public power supply has a devastating effect on businesses and has forced many smaller telecom companies to close shop because they could no longer remain competitive.

Additionally, the cost of right of way is rising despite the introduction of a new right of way policy.

The new right of way policy was  to ease difficulties encountered by operators in the erection of telecom infrastructure but there are still absurd levies by various agencies and state governments on right-of-way approvals .

The biggest problem is that operators have to pay two or three times to local, state and federal governments.   

 In the midst of the conspiracies threatening to dwarf the achievements of the industry, there are assurances by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

But despite the assurances, the industry is hanging precariously, only managing with a lot of cosmetics.

For instance, on the issue of the huge interconnect debt; NCC has not stamped its feet on the ground to resolve the impasse.

The new ‘Guidelines for Procedure for Granting of Approval to Disconnect Telecommunication Operators’ is a mere platitude because it will not address the important issue of the sharp difference in revenue sharing ratios between mobile operators and other operators.

The new guidelines will not also address the reluctance of operators to use interconnect houses purposely set up in the first place to rein in interconnect indebtedness.

Also imposing sanctions on operators for failing to meet the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will not solve the protracted quality of service challenges.

Instead, the NCC should be saying how it working with relevant stakeholders to address issues hindering operators from investing requisite resources in network expansion.

The Commission should also be telling Nigerians how it is working to encourage operators to invest more in network expansion and the incentives to spread the telecom revolution.

As a matter of fact, the survival or otherwise of the sector depends largely on robust regulation and strong will power of the NCC to remove the roadblocks to investments in the sector.