Okechukwu Kanu
10 February 2005
Lagos — A Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Private Inquiry into the reasons for the poor Quality of Service being provided by the GSM operators, has found that reasonable interconnection arrangement only exist between Vmobile and MTN of all the four GSM operators.
The NCC has thus directed that the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications Limited (M-tel), interconnect with Vmobile withing 21 days from the date of Direction.
Glomobile is also to expand its interconnection circuits with MTN and Vmobile and MTN expand its interconnection circuits with interconnected parties, particularly Glomobile.
Vmobile is to interconnect with M-tel immediately and to expand interconnect circuits with its interconnectel parties especially Glomobile.
The inquiry was the result of complaints from consumers as, high rate of call attempts, high dropped call rates, interference and loss of audio, non delivery of SMS, multiple billing of SMS, wrong feedback for SMS, other call and billing problems.
The NCC in accordance with the provisions of Section 59 of the the Nigerian Communications Act wrote to the operators on the 4th of January, 2005 inviting them to a Private Inquiry.
The inquiry, conducted separately for the various operators between January 11 and January 14, found several problems including: insufficient interconnection circuits amongst some operators and in the particular case of Vmobile and M-tel, where their networks were not directly interconnected but still linked via Nitel. There were also major challenges to all operators due to insufficient capacities on some existing routes and lack of capacity to several locations; major system failures during the month of December, 2004; and integration problems between the different network components supplied by different vendors for a particular mobile company.
As a result of the inquiry the NCC suggested to the operators that they, on a monthly basis provide Congestion/GOS trend report, drop calls report, availability report and Subscriber to Network Capacity Ratio reports, to the Commission on both national and regional basis. It also suggested that they put in place regular audits of their transmission links and base stations to ensure that transmission failure is quickly investigated and rectified.
Other measures suggested by the NCC include mechanisms to ensure automatic refund for subscribers for undelivered SMS, expansion of switching capacities, additional access days when downtime occurs, and mandatory monthly report to the Commission on Network Performance Indicators and equipment deployed build-out. Operators will also provide e-mail addresses for subscribers to lay complaints and upgrade their customer care and call centres to be upgraded and expanded.
Based on the result of the private Inquiry the Commission has mandated operators to take urgent steps to implement the agreed measures to ensure immediate improvement of the quality of service on the networks. To ensure compliance, the NCC is considering measures like imposition fines on errant operators, an order that the SIM cards no longer be sold at certain congestion levels, or the require ment that airtime validity be abolished pending when QoS improves.
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