THOUGH the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) slammed a N1.17 billion fine on all the GSM operators including MTN Nigeria, Globacom, Airtel and Emerging Markets Telecommunications Service, Etisalat, for perceived appalling status of telecommunications services in the country, the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria, has called on the regulator to address the various industry challenges bedeviling the telecoms sector.ALTON, the body responsible for all telecommunications companies and those providing subsidiary services to telecommunications service providers in Nigeria, said that the NCC's sanction came as a surprise to it, stressing that the regulator was yet to address various challenges mitigating against the progress of the sector.Speaking through its chairman, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo on Monday in Lagos, ALTON bemoaned the situation, adding that the basis for the fine did not reflect the problems the sector was facing. He stated that the commission acted against the fact.Fortnight ago, the NCC had asked MTN to pay N360 million as penalty, Airtel, N270 million, Etisalat, N360 million and Globacom, N180 million and gave them up till May 25 to pay up or face additional penalties incase of defaults. NCC said that operators which failed to pay up within the stated period would pay a further sum of N2.5 million for each parameter for a service for each day the contravention continued throughout the month of April, 2012.The NCC had set up the following KPIs for the operators to meet, 98 per cent Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), two per cent Call Drop Rate (CDR), 98 per cent HoSR, One per cent Standalone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH), 96 per cent Call Completion Rate (CCR) and two per cent Traffic Congestion ratings (TCH CoNG), but according to the regulator, non of the operators met its target within the period of March and April under review.The affected operators, times without number, had identified poor infrastructure, poor power supply, vandalism and capacity crunch, among others, as being responsible for their poor service delivery in the country.For them, however, multiple taxation, over-regulation and interference have had graver impact on their services, especially in the area of QoS.As such, Adebayo said that without NCC finding a lasting solution to these identified challenges, attaining or achieving a perfect state of telecommunications services in the country would remain a tall order.According to him, no amount of penalties or fines would solve the problems of QoS in the country. 'Will this fine address the issue of fibre cuts, vandalisation, theft, consistent interference, multiple taxation and above all the power challenge the operators experience daily' Rather than the fine serving as deterrence, it will further impinged on the growth of the sector. All these have to be factored first, before jumping into conclusion. The fine is just an attempt to show that something is being done. We expect the regulator to do more than it has done by addressing the issues troubling operators in the country,' he stated.The ALTON president stressed that it was important for the Nigerian regulator to understand and take into cognisance that the Nigerian networks were just growing, they have not been fully built, so the issue of QoS challenges will continue to be there so long as we remain on this tough terrain.According to him, technologies were changing by the day, there were optimisations 'as such, any efforts put to hinder their operation may rub off negatively on the gains of the sector within the last 10 years of telecoms operations in the country. The fine is bad for operators, bad for investors as well.'Adebayo, who reiterated that the NCC's KPIs parameters did not reflect the situation of the sector, argued that in advance economies where such parameters were found, there were no issues such as vandalisation, interference, Base Station closures among others.While calling on government and other stakeholders to assist, by approaching the issue holistically, Adebayo stressed, 'the approach of the NCC was a populist one. I believed that if they have consulted very well, the issue of fine would not have come up at all. We are bitter about this development. The fact remains that if the environment is guaranteed, the industry will grow. No institution in the world is insulated against failure. However, we have asked for the statement of reason and we expect NCC to furnish us with the details of the situation.'According to him, ALTON would pay the fine as it were, 'but NCC should mind the cost.' He said that it had got to the stage now where government must accord telecoms infrastructure in the country the critical national infrastructure status, which will prevent against undue interference, vandalisations, theft among others.Adebayo, who also appealed to subscribers in the country not to get crossed with the operators, reiterated, 'the subscribers remains the king and can not been taken for granted. The operators would be spending about $200 billion to improve their network infrastructure in the remaining part of the year.'Recalled that the NCC through its Head of compliance and Enforcement/Director, Legal & Regulatory Services, Ubale Maska and Josephine Amuwa on behalf of the NCC's Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah, explained in a document that for the periods under review and for the CSSR target, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat failed to meet the commission's target of greater than or equal to 98 per cent target. They had respectively, 96.42, 97.48, 96.88 per cents respectively. Only Globacom met the target at 98.02 per cent.For the CDR of less than or equal to two per cent target, MTN, Etisalat and Airtel, all met the commission's minimum threshold for the period at 1.41; 1.22 and 0.92 respectively, but Globacom had 1.17 per cent.In the HoSR category, NCC sets a target of equal to or greater than 98 per cent, MTN, Etisalat and Airtel failed to meet the commission's target in the period under review. MTN had 94. 67, Globacom had 97.67, Etisalat had 89.67 while Airtel had 96.33 per cents. NCC stated that the general performance by the operators was poor on this KPI.In SDCCH category with a target of less than or equal to 0.2 per cent by the regulator, players including MTN, Globacom, Etisalat and Airtel respectively had 0.61, 0.39, 1.36 and 0.47 percentages, which did not meet the expectation of the commission.Meanwhile, for the CCR of greater than or equal to 96 per cent, two of the operators Globacom and Airtel met NCC's target at 97.45 per cent and 96.59 per cent, while MTN and Etisalat did not meet the commission's target. But in the TCH CoNG ratings with a benchmark of less than or equal to two per cent, three of the operators met and superceded the commission's target, except for Globacom, which according to the commission could not be assessed.However, in a joint advertorial, the affected operators claimed to have invested over N1 trillion in building and enhancing mobile networks in the country over the last ten years, with a promise to invest additional N400 billion on infrastructure upgrade in 2012.
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