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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

NATCOMMS cautions NCC over prefix numbers

THE Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been advised against indiscriminate award of multiple prefix numbers to Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) operators in the country.

Giving this advice is the national president of National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo.

In a press statement to mark the World Consumer Day recently, Chief Ogunbanjo said “NCC should ensure that before the GSM operators are granted further extensions for 0806/0703 (MTN), 0807/0705 (Glo), 0808/0702 (Celtel) among others, which will accommodate additional 20 million SIM cards per operator, they should ensure that 0803, 0802, 0805, which accommodates 10 million subscribers each, have been satisfactorily served with corresponding number base stations and enough E1 connectors that will ensure good quality service.”

The NATCOMS chief frowned at a situation where these extensions have not brought about a corresponding improvement in the quality of services offered by the operators.

According to him, “If NCC does not grant the GSM operating companies the 0806, 0807, 0808 etc extensions, the operators will ensure that they provide good quality service for consumers because they know that if they do not satisfy the existing customers, NCC will not grant them the next level of 0703, 0705, 0702 etc which will accommodate an additional 10 million subscribers.”

He pointed out the fact that NCC is granting GSM operating companies more levels/batches of 10 million SIM cards/subscribers means they (NCC) are also contributing to network congestion of the operators.

Adding that NCC must evolve a subscriber quality protection policy and ensure that they do not grant any GSM operator the next level/batch without good quality services provision to current subscribers on their various networks.

The NATCOMS president, also welcome the entrance of Visafone to the market hoping that they will offer the subscribers with a more pocket-friendly products and tariffs just as the group look forward to Etisalat roll out.

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