By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/p>\n
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has instructed telecommunications companies in Nigeria to carry out a comprehensive audit of their billing systems. A source within the Commission, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed this information to Nairametrics on Monday.<\/p>\n
The source confirmed that KPMG, a leading global audit firm, has been chosen to conduct the audit for one of the four major telecommunications companies in Nigeria, though the specific company was not identified.<\/p>\n
The telecommunications sector in Nigeria is primarily dominated by four major players: MTN Nigeria Communications PLC, Airtel Networks Limited (Airtel Africa PLC), Globacom Limited, and 9Mobile (Emerging Markets Telecommunication Services Ltd).<\/p>\n
The source stressed that the audit’s main goal is to verify the accuracy and transparency of the mobile network operators’ (MNOs) billing systems. \u201cThe billing audit is basically to ascertain that the billing systems of the MNOs are accurate,\u201d the source stated.<\/p>\n
Alongside the audit, the NCC is conducting a series of Focus Group Discussion (FGD) sessions to engage telecommunication service consumers nationwide. These sessions aim to gauge consumers’ understanding of tariffs and gather recommendations for an improved tariff system.<\/p>\n
The first focus group session was recently held in Abuja, with another planned for Lagos. As the NCC continues its efforts to ensure fair billing practices and enhance consumer satisfaction, the outcomes of these audits and discussions are expected to significantly influence the future structure and pricing of telecommunication services in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
The NCC recently announced its objective of achieving a 50% improvement in the quality of services (QoS) within the telecommunications sector by the end of this year. This statement, signed by the NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Mouka, highlighted the regulator\u2019s activities during the first year of President Bola Tinubu\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
The NCC outlined that the 50% QoS improvement is among the targets set by the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, and that the Commission is actively working to meet this goal. Other targets in Tijani\u2019s Strategic Agenda 2023 include increasing Nigeria\u2019s broadband penetration rate to 70% by the end of 2025, achieving data download speeds of 25Mbps in urban areas and 10Mbps in rural areas by the end of 2025, and ensuring coverage for at least 80% of the population, focusing on underserved and unserved areas, by the end of 2026.<\/p>\n
While the NCC is striving for a more transparent and appropriate billing system, telecommunications operators in Nigeria argue that their service prices need to be increased, having remained unchanged for 11 years. This position was expressed in a recent joint statement by the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) and The Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), representing mobile network operators and telecom companies.<\/p>\n
According to these associations, the telecom industry is the only sector that has not adjusted its prices despite rising inflation and other economic factors necessitating an increase. They attributed this to regulatory restrictions preventing appropriate pricing.<\/p>\n
The NCC controls pricing in the telecom industry, and operators cannot change prices without regulatory approval. The regulator has stated that a cost-based study is underway to determine if price increases for operators will be approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emmanuel Ogbodo The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has instructed telecommunications companies in Nigeria to carry out a comprehensive audit of their billing systems. A source within the Commission, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed this information to Nairametrics on Monday. The source confirmed that KPMG, a leading global audit firm, has been chosen to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[485],"class_list":["post-40060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ncc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40062,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40060\/revisions\/40062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}