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A consumer rights group, Association of Telephone, Cable Tv, and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCIS-Nigeria) has urged the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and telecom operators to do more to improve the end user experience of telecom services.
Its President, Dr Sina Bilesanmi, who spoke during an occasion to mark this year’s World Consumer Rights Day in Ikeja, said going by what the experience was before the approval of the 50 per cent adjustment in end user tariff of telecom services, there has been marginal improvement, adding that it could get better.
He said: “Well, in the past, the service quality was bad. But after one year of tariff hike which we supported, we are beginning to feel its impact. But like they say, it could only get better. We were told over $1billion had been committed to the industry by the mobile network operators (MNOs), we are waiting to see the impact of the huge investment. We know most of the equipment used in the industry are sourced from major global telecom equipment vendors including Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung and it takes time for these things to get into the country, install and inaugurate, we hope we will see improvements.”
On persistent telecom infrastructure vandalism, Bilesanmi advised the MNOs to engage more with ATCIS-Nigeria because its members are in every nook and cranny of the country so that they could own telecom infrastructure.
“We appreciate the efforts of President Bola Tinubu and the security agencies.”
We especially appreciate the Executive Order that classifies telecom infrastructure as critical national infrastructure but we think there should be a combination of both the kinetic and non-kinetic approach to solving the problem.
When the issue of pipeline vandalism became rampant and it was threatening the national economy, the Federal Government engaged the natives to provide security for the pipelines.”
“What we are saying is that the telcos should carry the subscribers along through their advocacy group. Give them a sense of ownership. If an electric pole goes down in a community and it affects the transformer, members of the community will immediately constitute a vigilance group to protect the infrastructure because they know that if all these itinerant aboki “condemned iron” buyers come around, they will cart them away. That is the sense of ownership the telcos should give to the subscribers. When cables are wilfully vandalised, generators and inverter batteries are stolen, the base transceiver station goes down and everyone is negatively impacted,” he said, adding that the National Orientation Agency (NOA) should step up its game for more impact.
“We are ready and willing to partner with the security agencies, the telcos and others to combat this menace once and for all. It is an ill wind that blows no good to anyone,” he said.
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