The Nigerian Communications Commission plans to step up penalties for telecommunications operators whose quality of service fall below regulatory benchmarks.
This move is in response to pressures from subscribers, who have expressed displeasure with worsening quality of telecoms services.
NCCs Executive Vice-Chairman, Mr. Ernest Ndukwe, disclosed this in Abuja on Thursday when he inaugurated the Nigerian Traffic and Operations Group meeting.
Acknowledging pressures from several groups, Ndukwe said the regulatory agency was in the process of rolling out new quality benchmarks and ‘heavy penalties on defaulting operators.
The NTOG has one month to bring up proposals that will lead to optimising networks and better quality of service.
Ndukwe said that poor quality of service often resulted from incompetence of manpower in the industry.
He also lamented that the country was losing telecoms experts to Saudi Arabia and the Middle East where operators were ready to pay better salaries.
According to him, sometimes when the operators are upgrading their networks, something catastrophic happens as a result of certain level of incompetence.
He said, We are aware that one of the issues negatively affecting the efficient delivery of optimum level of performance by service providers is the shortage of experienced manpower in the operating companies and the high turnover of the few experienced engineering personnel.”
Meanwhile, membership of the NTOG, which is co-ordinated by the Director of Traffic and Network Optimisation at NCC, Mrs. Martha Onyejuwa, was drawn from major operators in the industry.
The scope of work of the group includes developing best practices aimed at improving reliability of different communications networks. This includes reviewing any existing practices in terms of its effectiveness.
It also has the responsibility to identify causes of non-completion of calls besides failure of the national power supply and proffer solutions.
The groups mandate also includes developing optimal ways to reduce non-completion rates and working out a strategy to ensure effective deployment of interactive voice response and recorded announcements to minimise ineffective calls.
Through statistical analysis, the group will identify service interruptions resulting from transmission failures, other smajor causes and proffer solutions.
By Everest Amaefule, Abuja
The Punch
Friday, September 14, 2007
