NATCOMS writes ALTON, demands N5000 compensation

AS the telecommunications industry in Nigeria gears up for the 12th anniversary of the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) in the country, the National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) have written to the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) demand the sum of N5000 per subscriber as compensation for poor quality of service in the next 12 years.

A copy of the letter made available to DigitalSENSEBusiness News and dated Friday, August 2, 2013, NATCOMS president, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo in the letter address to his counterpart at ALTON, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, enroute the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Eugene Juwah, said the N5000 would be in consideration of poor QoS.

“Subscribers in Nigeria are requesting from all telecommunications operators in Nigeria a compensation of N5,000.00 (Five Thousand Naira) each to call any network, for 12 years (Baker’s Dozen Years) of total loyalty, storm weathering, patronage through thick and thin as well as standing by them, even in the face of poor quality service,” he said.

The letter tagged “Compensation Request of N5000 each for subscribers in Nigeria in the face of Poor Quality of Service – 12 Years After,” the association noted that when GSM was introduced commercially in August 2001 gave subscribers on their network N6,000.00 (Six Thousand Naira) free to call any network.

“We appreciate this gesture as the introduction of the Global System for Mobile Communications (G.S.M.) in Nigeria in 2001 has brought about positive changes for individuals, corporate organizations, government at all levels and the country at large. It has saved thousands of lives in emergency, created and still creating jobs for many Nigerians, eased communications within families, work places and across nations,” he said.

Also, NATCOMS leadership pointed out that apart from bringing Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) into Nigeria and appreciating Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), it brought foreign and local investors’ confidence to the Nigerian economy and nation.

However, he said, the quality of service (QoS) profile that describes the performance evaluation of the system from the consumer perspective, using specific parameters has been poor.

“In telephony and other services, parameters used include call failure rate, call drop rate, call set-up rate, call completion rate, billing accuracy, voice quality, network outages / downtimes, spectrum efficiency, international roaming, traffic channel congestion, etc. among others,” Ogunbanjo lamented.

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