Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy by GDP, has joined the list of countries on the continent that will impose prison sentences on officials of Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) over their inability to render better quality of service to their teeming subscribers.
Tanzania and Zambia are amongst the growing number of African countries imposing prison sentences on operators who do not provide quality telecommunications services. The Nigeria Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has however warned mobile phone operators that it would soon start filing criminal charges against them as a way of whipping them into line.
The consumer watchdog, supervised by the federal government under the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment, said lack of severe punishment for erring telecoms companies had led to a worrisome situation where telecoms consumers no longer get value for their money in the country.
Dupe Atoki, director general, CPC, said Nigeria’s telecoms industry is awash with poor service in the shape of dropped calls, incoherent transmission and unsolicited text messages, and credit wipe-off.
Poor service provision by operators in the region is generally considered to be a result of lack of investment in networks and has become a source of concern in many African countries where consumers are losing money on uncompleted calls.
Last year, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) imposed a ban on operators, stopping them from adding more subscribers to their networks until their networks were improved.
Over the past four years, mobile operators in the region have been engaged in a heated price war, which has resulted in cheaper communication services but also contributed to huge network congestion as an increasing number of subscribers take advantage of lower rates.
Quality Assurance tests (QAT) that have been carried out by telecom regulators in several countries in the region have shown that all operators that were tested failed to meet service quality levels specified in service level agreements.
Despite several warnings to improve networks, operators have failed to do so. Even heavy fines have not helped improve the situation. Consequently, regulators have resorted to threatening to take the operators to court on grounds that poor service delivery amounts to theft of customer money.
“In order to enforce consumer rights and ensure compliance with CPC’s enabling law, CPC has adopted a strategy of criminal prosecution of recalcitrant businesses or litigations to achieve satisfactory redress,” said Atoki. Lanre Ajayi, president, Association of Telecommunications Companies (ATCON) does not see imposing prison sentences as the right way to go.
According to him, the role of power in telecom service delivery cannot be over-emphasised, further adding that telcos largely depend on stable availability of power to function optimally. The Nigerian power situation, due to the abysmal performance of PHCN is poor, “this has made the operators to depend on alternative power supply to run their Base Transceivers Stations,” he stated.
“This is very expensive. For instance, telecom operators use an average of twenty five thousand litres of diesel every month to power their base stations. With over 25,000 base stations across the country by a telecommunications operators, there is an average of 50,000 at two generators per base station.”
The cost of the diesel is not inclusive of the cost of logistics incurred in procuring and transporting the diesel as well as the cost of servicing the generators. There are places which are not connected to the National Grid, the operations are 100 percent powered by generators, in those locations.
Edith Mwale, telecom analyst at Africa Centre for ICT Development, said Nigeria, being Africa’s largest telecom market by both subscription and investment, is expected to influence the way other African nations handle complaints of poor services by operators.
“Nigeria’s decision to start slapping operators with criminal charges will closely be followed by many other countries in Africa because not only is Nigeria Africa’s largest telecom market but also the region’s largest economy,” said Mwale.
In Zambia, the Zambia Information and Technology Authority (ZICTA), the country’s telecom sector regulator, has already dragged Airtel, MTN and Zamtel to court for failing to meet the minimum standards of quality of service. In Tanzania, telcos can be fined up to $3,000 for poor QoS and can be sent to prison for at least six months for network failures without proper explanation.
Ben Uzor, with wire reports
