country are owing telecommunications companies over N17 billion
following the regulator’s suspension of its Determination on
Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) Pricing last year.
The NCC, in furtherance of its mandate to protect the interests of
consumers and support a robust telecommunications sector, recently
announced that it had revised the Determination on the USSD.
Speaking at ATCON’s virtual forum on “Meeting the Interests of
Government, Consumers and Telecoms Companies in the Era of Covid-19 and
Post Covid-19 Pandemic for Digital Economy Development”, Danbatta noted
that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Ali Isa
Ibrahim Pantami had already been briefed on the development with a view
to ensuring a quick settlement of the debt.
Explaining the Commission’s efforts at resolving consumer-related
issues, he noted that when the Commission introduced the Do-Not-Disturb
(DND) code in 2015, less than 500,000 people activated the code, but
there are now 22,722,366 lines on the DND.
Danbatta further stated that ninety-eight percent (98%) of the total
service-related complaints received from telecoms consumers within a
15-month period, spanning January 2019 to April 2020, have been
successfully resolved by the Commission.
On the quality of service, Danbatta said “the Commission has monthly
engagements with operators as well as quarterly industry working group
on Quality of Service and Short Codes, and is currently monitoring 2G
Key Performance Indicators, while the KPIs for 4G are being prepared.”
It should be recalled that the NCC, in a statement released to the media
recently, observed that the amendment to its USSD Determination was
necessitated by a protracted dispute between Mobile Network Operators
and Financial Institutions on the applicable charges for USSD services
and the method of billing. As a responsive and effective regulatory
authority, the Commission recognises that its policies are not static
and may be modified from time to time as circumstances demand.
According to Danbatta, in the interest of the consumers and other
stakeholders, the Commission revised the Determination previously issued
by removing the Price Floor and the Cap to allow Mobile Network
Operators and the banks to negotiate rates that will be mutually
beneficial to all parties concerned.
The NCC also determined that Mobile Network Operators must not charge
the consumers directly for the use of USSD channels for financial
services in the form of end-user-billing, but revert to corporate
billing. The transaction should be between the MNOs and the entity to
which the service is provided (i.e. Banks and Financial Institutions).