Apex telecommunications body in the country, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has frowned at Starcomms Limited and other mobile operators, who insist on cutting mobile subscribers off their networks after a given period due to what they tagged as ‘insufficient airtime validity.’
NCC also warned that non-compliance to this regulatory guideline would attract sanctions from the commission.
This injunction was given last weekend, at the 48th edition of the NCC-organized Telecom Consumer Parliament, which held Friday, August 1, 2008 at the Excellence Hotel, Ogba, Lagos State by the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Ernest Ndukwe.
He noted that NCC has continuously heard about Starcomms among other mobile operators who cut off or deny their subscribers access to services on their networks with the claim that there was no or sufficient airtime validity on a given lines.
Airtime validity according to the operators entails that subscribers must have a given time to use up their airtime loaded on their lines and after such a time the airtime loaded, if not used up, automatically become forfeited which in most cases last between one week and two weeks.
Also, if a subscriber does not have valid airtime for a period such users in some networks like Starcomms cannot receive calls or even Short Messaging Service (SMS).
Ndukwe who was reacting to a complaint brought before the parliament by a lady Starcomms subscriber, said that such excuses do not hold waters, especially when the person in question has airtime on his or her mobile lines.
He warned Starcomms sternly alongside any other operator enjoying such undue privilege whether on the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) or the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators, to stop forthwith.
According to him, NCC may be forced to wield the ultimate stick of sanction on mobile operators who refused to adhere to this no validity on mobile directive.
He insisted that all mobile operators must comply with the unrestricted validity on both GSM and CDMA, basically on mobiles.
“Don’t restrict them, because it is their money and they should be able to use it as at when they like,” he cautioned.
Ndukwe also noted in his remark that what the commission has found out was the need to get customer care centres all over the place.
He revealed that the Consumer Affairs Bureau (CAB) of the commission would soon come out with guidelines to determine the number of minimum care centres an operator is expected to have in a city or suburbs.
“Its sad to note that some one who bought N200 recharge card and had an issue with it may have to spend about N500 on transport to correct a problem on his card,” he decried.
Ndukwe further pointed out that subscribers should be made to have a choice from where they could buy their recharge cards from.
He advised subscribers also to ensure they load their recharge card at the nearest point of purchase.
This, he said, would help immensely in dictating without much ado dealers who sell fake recharge cards of any form.
Equally speaking, the President, National Association of Telecomm Subscribers (NATCOMS), Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, urged NCC to take a stringent measure on Starcomms on the issue of validity on mobiles, because previously the operator had been warned to desist from such habit during the February edition of the monthly telecom consumer parliament.
Some of the operators at the parliament included the Second National Operator (SNO), Globacom, Zain Nigeria, MTN, Intercellular, MultiChoice Telkom to name a few.
The 48th edition of the Telecom Consumer Parliament dwelt on “Curbing Production and Sale of Fake Products” across the services of both fixed line and mobile operators.
The parliament also discussed issues relating to quality of service, consumer rights protection, environmental impact assessment, interconnection, tariffs and universal service provision.
The monthly parliament which has become an assemblage of major stakeholders in the industry, opinion leaders, public affairs and policy analysts, government officials and students, avail telecoms operators and the industry regulator to be on the spotlight of the consumers. It is rotated across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
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