Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Monday issued a last warning to telecoms operators who are currently not complying with the ‘Do Not Disturb’ (DND) directives given to them on April 20, 2016.
NCC has given a week ultimatum from Monday, November 14, to Airtel, MTN Nigeria, Globacom, Smile Communication, Ntel, Etisalat, Visafone and others to stop sending unsolicited marketing messages to its customers or risk being fined N5 million per text message.
“The Federal Government has had series of meetings with telecoms operators in the past and it was agreed that a Do Not Disturb activation code will be introduced to stop customers from receiving promotion or marketing messages and calls from their network providers, but we have noticed that operators are not strictly adhering to the directives from the NCC and if they continue telemarketing after the one-week ultimatum, then they risk being sanctioned N5 million for every message sent,” Sonny Aragba Akpore, assistant director, NCC, told BusinessDay.
According to a statement issued by Tony Ojobo, director of public affairs, NCC, “the commission inaugurated an eight-member committee to look into complaints of subscribers across Nigeria and after several meetings, including those it held with network providers, it became necessary to issue this final ultimatum to redress the menace of incessant unsolicited text messages and phone calls for telemarketing via various networks.”
Adebayo Shittu, minister of communications, had earlier denounced the exploitation of subscribers by Nigerian telecoms operators through charges taken for unsolicited calls and spam messages.
“Unsolicited messages have become very rampant in the telecoms industry and some of these spam messages can put consumers at risk because most spams are sent to get financial or personal data. The network operators need to address this issue of unsolicited messages immediately,” Shittu said.
The commission said it had engaged mobile network operators on this subject and further directed that: the phrase ‘MTN generated SMS’ referred to part (d) of the duration issued on April 20, 2016 to MTN and other network providers shall be taken to mean: messages and calls with respect to only: information on emergencies for example, national security.
It further stated that notifications on network maintenance programmes down times and, notification regarding subscribers bundle usage and service renewals. Other text messages and voice calls informing subscribers of new products and service offerings are not regarded as network generated and therefore regarded as “unsolicited marketing messages.”
The NCC has therefore asked these network providers to ensure that information on the Do Not Disturb service should be disseminated after every revenue generating activity via the End of Call Notification (EOCN) for the period not less than 45 days within the hours of 8am to 8pm daily from the receipt of the latest letter on the subject.
The operators are also admonished to deploy this information through all their channels of communications, including websites, social media platforms, bill boards, flash messages, text messages, Interactive Voice Response platform, radio jingles, newspapers adverts and TV commercials.
This notice serves as a pre-enforcement notice and “Failure to comply with the directives, in furtherance of the direction of April 20, 2016, within seven days from November 14, 2016, shall result in the imposition of appropriate sanctions, the statement said.
