Telephone subscribers, at the eight edition of consumer parliament, have called on the Federal Government to do something about the current punitive tariff regime, poor service quality and low internet speed in the country.Speaking in Lagos, Hajia Iyabode Dange, the Majeobaje of Lagos, a market women leader, said she was speaking on behalf of the millions of Nigerians that are voiceless and urged service providers to do something about the current high tariff in the country. 'I represent the voiceless segment of the society that use your service. We want tariff to go down,' she said.For Dr Ogundipo who said he provides value added services to organisations, there is the problem of ease of access as there are usually no auto-response to complaints, adding that the tariff being charged now is 'killing.' According to him, doing business under the current tariff regime is herculean as they are running at a loss.Another subscriber, Oludare Onasanya, said internet connection is important to enterprise survival in a modern world. He therefore wants the speed to improve so that enterprise can survive. He said the service providers were all neck-deep in promos which he said is aimed at 'taking back from the people' adding that the operators must do something about growing enterprise in the country.Responding, an official of one of the operators blamed quality of service on a whole lot of factors including punitive cost of energy, security of telecoms infrastructure. According to him, the time has come for the National Assembly to declare telecoms infrastructure as critical national infrastructure so that it will be given adequate legal protection so that in the event of vandalism, appropriate legal action would be instituted.While he agreed that the speed of the internet as it is now falls below expectation, he blamed the development on the problem associated with distribution of bandwidth which the undersea cables that have landed in the country has brought.Responding, Funmi Omogenigun, general manager, corporate communications at MTN Nigeria, assured that tariffs would still go down but hinged this on two factors. The factors are competition and boost in capacity.She said MTN has a department devoted to enterprise growth and development, adding that the department has been up and doing, providing enterprise solutions to enterprise bodies.Speaking on the occasion, Dr Eugene Juwah, executive vice chairman/CEO of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) acknowledged that the industry still faces some challenges.'The main challenge has been that of quality of service that has not reached the envisaged level of efficiency. Erratic public power supply, vandalisation of telecom infrastructure, lack of basic infrastructure, high level insecurity, multiple taxation, militancy, all collectively affect expectations from the industry,' Juwah said.He said the Commission has been issuing regulatory directions to the industry to ensure that stakeholders keep to the rule, arguing that there have been numerous guidelines on different services provided by service providers (Spread of Customer Care Centres, Helplines by service providers, etc).He added that because consumer interest is considered as key to the performance of the industry, the NCC created Consumer Affairs Bureau which specifically ensures that consumers' interests are adequately protected. The bureau has been able to discharge this responsibility through its PIE Mandate: i.e designed to Protect, Inform and Educate the consumers on issues of interest.According to him, one of the ways this mandate is being carried out is the Outreach programmes of the Commission. The outreach program include the Telecom Consumer Parliament (TCP), Consumer Outreach Programme (COP) and the Consumer Townhall Meeting (CTM). These programs are implemented at three tiers, i.e capital cities, major urban centers and the rural areas, respectively.At the forum for the outreach programmes, the stakeholders are able to deliberate on industry issues. It is a feedback mechanism to the Commission. It should be noted that key issues discussed at the forum have translated to policies at the Commission and also served as the basis for further regulatory intervention by the Commission. To date we have held 64 editions of TCP, 44 COP events and 4 TCM outings.What is paramount to us at the NCC is to have a telecom industry that is robust, vibrant and efficient, and which will be an impetus for greater economic development of the country. We are trying to promote an industry that will fully support the President's transformation agenda.Permit me here to inform you of recent activities that will impact significantly on the future of the industry. The SIM Card Registration has just ended. At the moment there is a harmonization of the entire process to ensure that only the right and clean data gets into the consolidated data infrastructure. Those yet unregistered can take advantage of the harmonization window. Number Portability will soon commence as the Commission recently licensed the consortium of Interconnect/ Saab Grintek/ Telcordia for the exercise. We have set our eyes on Mobile Banking while the next big thing is Broadband Initiative that we are working on. Broadband is central to the development of any country and the Nigerian government is ready to promote the growth in order to take voice and data access to all ends of the country.
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