Monday, October 21, 2013

Regulators face huge challenges matching consumers’ interest - Itanyi

Anthony Nwakaegho /DigitalSENSE Business News

The Executive Commissioner Stakeholders Management, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr Okechukwu  Itanyi has disclosed that African telecommunications regulators are facing huge challenges in marching  consumers’ interest, DigitalSENSE Business News reports.

Itanyi made this known while making his presentation on the topic ‘regulatory trends, challenges and potentials for growth’ at the first conference of African telecom regulators on consumer affairs, (CATCO 2013) in Lagos, noting that the shift of emphasis from licencing to other obligations like consumer protection has increased both the scope and complexity of regulating   telecommunications.

Itanyi noted that a number of regulatory risks are encountered from time to time and the commission always rise to the occasion by striking a balance amongst various conflicting interest of affected stakeholders in areas such as distribution of bandwidth resources, allocation of scare resources, collaboration with other regulatory agencies, dispute resolutions, rapid change in technology and universal access obligation.

He explained that the establishment of the Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) of the NCC in September 2001 was a unique approach regulation that gave rise to the Telecoms Consumer Parliament (TCP), Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) and Town Hall Meetings (THM) in Nigeria with other initiatives such as the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), Digital Appreciation Project(DAP), Emergency Communication Center (ECC), Advanced Digital Access Programme for Tertiary Institutions (ADAPTI), Wireless Cloud Programme (WCP), School Access Programme(TiAP) among others.

DigitalSENSE Business News recalls the  effort of the NCC and government in the development of broadband in Nigeria and noted from the Executive Commissioner Stakeholders Management that other grey areas that is not peculiar only to Nigeria but also other African countries includes “customer care and quality of service , physical challenged person and service positioning, promotion and lottery, dispute resolution, monitoring and compliances, enhancing consumer awareness through information dissemination and education, consumer data protection and consumer rights.”


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pix of Executive Vice Chairman NCC, Dr Eugene Juwah

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