NCC seeks judicial restraint against erring Telcos

The Nigerian Communications Communication (NCC) could seek a judicial restraint on the four GSM companies to force them to pay the over N1 billion fine it imposed on them last month, but this move could result in the total collapse of telecommunications services in a large part of the country, according to critics. BusinessDay learnt that the NCC which appears to have lost its patience with MTN, GLO, AIRTEL and ETISALAT will aim to shut down the Abuja offices of the firms which got the hammer after they failed to meet a controversial set of key performance indicators, KPIs for the month of April 2012.

Telecommunications analysts say any forced shut down of the Abuja offices of the companies will definitely create a devastating ripple effect capable of bringing about a total collapse of telephone and data services in a large part of the country, given that hub sites located in Abuja also service at least 60 other locations in different parts of the country. It was thought that the NCC and the GSM firms were negotiating a way out of a full blown crisis but BusinessDay learnt last night that this was not the case, and that the regulator was willing to wield the big stick and take the confrontation to a higher level.

One source familiar with the crisis said the GSM firms were contesting the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which they claim were even higher than what obtains in India and appear to mirror the KPIs of global leaders like Orange of the United Kingdom. Their position has always been that they do not benefit from poor service quality and that the current KPIs are unsustainable.v“I won’t say that the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set by the NCC are unattainable. It would have been attainable if the operational environment was right and conducive,” says Lanre Ajayi, president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON).

Ajayi says that the federal government must create the enabling environment that would enable telecoms operators expand their network infrastructure. According to another source, “these KPIs cannot be obtainable in Nigeria. The GMS companies are not pushing for a lowering of standards but KPIs must be realistic and relevant to the ecosystem in Nigeria. “Given that the matter of power supply is key, perhaps it would have been better for NCC to structure the KPIs in a way that performance levels are raised proportionately.”

Analysts say if this is not done, there is a chance that the NCC would have to impose fines on the GSM companies every month, given that the KPIs were far too high for a country like Nigeria and that this could send the wrong signals to the global investing community. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) told BusinessDay last night that there are very positive discussions ongoing between operators and the telecoms regulator which are expected to yield results.

MTN, Airtel, Etisalat and Globacom were fined a total of N1.17 billion for not meeting stipulated quality of service benchmarks. MTN and Etisalat were fined N360 million each. Bharti Airtel was ordered to pay N270 million, while Globacom was fined N180 million.The deadline to pay expired on May 25, 2012 with a default of N2.5 million per day, until the fines are paid. As at Monday (June 11), MTN was expected to pay a total of N400, 000, 000, while Airtel is to pay the sum of N310, 000, 000. Etisalat, which was initially billed to pay N382, 500, 000, with the addition of N17, 500, 000, the company, will be paying the total sum of N400, 000, 000. Second National Operator, Globacom on the other hand, is expected to pay a total of N220, 000, 000. The grand total the four telecoms companies are to now pay will be N1, 330, 000, 000.

The NCC had issued the directive following the decline in service quality in the networks and had intimated MTN, Airtel and Globacom of its intention to issue direction if they failed to meet KPIs on service quality, including Call Set-up Success Rate (CSSR); Call Completion Rate (CCR); Stand-alone Dedicated Controlled Channel Congestion (SDCCH); Hand-over Success Rate and Traffic Channel Congestion (TCH Cong). Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR) is a term in telecoms, for the fraction of the attempts to make a call which result in a connection to the dialed number (due to various reasons, not all call attempts end with a connection to the dialed number). This fraction is usually measured as a percentage of all call attempts made.

According to NCC’s March and April 2012 KPI summary sheet, the commission target for CSSR which operators were expected to meet was 98 percent. MTN had 97.07 and 96.42 percent, Glo had 98.33 and 98.02 percent, Airtel had 97.39 and 97.48 percent, while Etisalat had 94.38 and 96.88 percent, respectively. Call Completion Rate (CCR) Call completion rate is the ratio of successfully completed calls to the total number of attempted calls. This means that for every hundred calls made to all the GSM networks of MTN, Globacom, Airtel and Etisalat, NCC according to March and April 2012 KPI summary sheet, NCC wants 96 per cent of them to go through and be successfully completed. However, MTN had 95.78 and 95.20 percent, Globacom had 97.44 and 97.45 percent, Etisalat had 93.05 and 95.81 percent whilst Airtel had 96.56 and 96.59 percent.

Hand Over Success Rate (HOSR) refers to the successful internal and external outgoing handovers of total number of internal and external outgoing handover attempts. The telecom regulator set 98 percent as its target for March and April. MTN had 95.14 and 94.67 percent, Globacom had 97.73 and 97.67 percent, Etisalat had 89.67 and 91.28 percent while Airtel had 96.64 and 96.33 percent respectively.