" ITREALMS: NCC sanctions Globacom on QoS

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Monday, September 03, 2007

NCC sanctions Globacom on QoS

The Nigeria apex telecommunications regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), has sanctioned the Second National Operator (SNO), Globacom Limited, due to deteriorating quality of services (QoS) on the network to the tune of N5 million fine.

Daily Champion recalled that recently NCC had directed the three dominant operators to stop forthwith any promotion and concentrate in improving quality of service (QoS).

Some of the operators affected in the initial promotion directive include MTN, Glo and Celtel, mostly on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), which services have continued to get worse in the past few months.

Announcing the directive, NCC Head, Public Affairs, Mr. Dave Imoko said that the fine of N5 million was in violation of its earlier directive.

He stressed that based on this, Globacom would pay half a million Naira for each day it defaulted since the deadline of the 14-day notice to stop its promo.

He explained that on July 6, 2007, Globacom alongside other affected operators were issued a direction, but the telco failed to adhere to the direction.

“Glo should not embark on and also discontinue any promotional activities that could directly or indirectly degrade the quality of service on its network for a period of ninety days in the first instance,” NCC noted.

The regulator also said that in spite of the clear terms of its earlier directive “Glo on July 23, 2007 published an advertisement on page 66 of ThisDay newspaper and commenced promotional activities, which has the effect of directly encouraging subscribers to make more minutes of call.”

This, NCC pointed out caused further deterioration of the quality of service on Glo network, hence it has contravened the direction.

According to Mr. Imoko, NCC is imposing this fine in line with the powers invested on the Commission from the provision of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, Regulation 15 of the Nigerian Communications (Enforcement Processes, etc) Regulations 2005 and the Direction dated July 6, 2007, which had made it on July 30, 2007 to impose the N5m fine on Globacom.

He explained that the amount escalated to the tune of N5 million due to inability of Globacom to pay initial penalty of N500,000 each day the fine has been unpaid.

“… Despite the expiration of the 14-day period within which Globacom should have paid the fine, it has failed, refused and neglected to pay the fine. Apart from the additional N500,000.00 (five hundred thousand naira) to be paid by Globacom for everyday the fine remains unpaid.”

NCC further affirmed that it would not attend to any regulatory request made by Globacom during this period, just as it warned that the Commission would not condone any flagrant refusal to comply with its directions by a licensee.

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