Active subscribers on telecommunications networks operating in Nigeria stood at 93.46 million by the end of September, the Nigerian Communications Commission has said. In its monthly subscriber data, the regulatory agency also disclosed that 122.34 million lines had been connected by the same date. This implies that a total of 28.88 million connected lines had been rendered inactive. It represents a churning rate of 23.61 per cent. The September active subscriber figure showed an increase of 1,367,236 over 92,094,200 active subscribers recorded as at the end of August. This shows an increase of 1.48 per cent over a period of one month alone. The subscriber statistics for the month of September showed that the Global System for Mobile Communications popularly known as GSM remained the dominant technology in the Nigerian telecommunications landscape. GSM contributed 87.42 million subscribers to the networks total active subscriber base by the end of September. This represents 93.53 per cent of all the subscribers in the networks. The fortunes of the fixed services, on the other hand, continued to dwindle as active subscribers to fixed and fixed wireless networks reduced from 856,003 lines in August to 828,797 lines in the month of September. Mobile service providers on the platform of Code Division Multiple Access technology contributed 5,215,131 lines. The number also showed a decrease from the 5,352,851 lines recorded in the month of August. Our correspondent had earlier reported that the number of connected GSM lines by the end of January stood at 96,547,864 lines while active lines stood at 82,618,510. This put the number of inactive lines at 13,929,354 or 16 per cent. The number of connected mobile lines offered by Code Division Multiple Access operators stood at 12,338,686 while active lines stood at 6,186,442. This showed the percentage of inactive lines stood at 99.45 per cent. Fixed lines showed the highest number of inactive lines as at January. While a total of 2,741,983 were connected, 1,035,391 were active. This showed an inactive rate of 164.83 per cent. A number of reasons account for the high rate of inactivity in lines (or churning rate in communications parlance) provided by network operator in the country. These include poor services. Many subscribers who have been frustrated by the poor quality of services rendered by the operators find it more convenient to abandon their lines rather than carry phones that do not work when they need service desperately. They could switch to another service provider. Another reason for the high rate of dormant lines in the networks is the high rate of promotions targeted at attracting new subscribers. Occasionally, these promotions produce many lines which the subscribers do not really need. Low entry cost and perceived high calling rates or tariffs also account for the high churning rates in the mobile networks. High rate of theft of mobile phones in the country explain why many mobile lines are inactive. When some subscribers lose their phones, they do not want to go through the rigours of recovering their lines. They prefer to buy another line which could be cheaper than recovering an old line.
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