The Nigerian Communications Commission(NCC), said telecoms operators should consider reviewing the volume of voice and data plans that they have in their service as several voice and data plans are confusing their clients.
NCC, buttressed that Globacom, has 6 voice plans and 32 voice plans while EMTS, which is 9Mobile, have 7 voice plans and 97 voice plans saying that all that was done in the name of the services and products presented to consumers in the industry.
Also, the Director of Consumer Affairs Bureau at the NCC, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, said in a meeting in Lagos, that the NCC thinks that this is not helping the consumer experience in the industry stressing that .that is wrong if the goal is to have a consumer that is satisfied.
He stated that data available to the Commission revealed that “consumers have different levels of experience in the industry and that at the first level, which is what consumers complain to the operators. Operators are not able to resolve the complaints” adding what the NCC has done is to focus on the consumer, by “understanding that really, without the consumer, this sector will not thrive.”
He disclosed that the complaints, that comes to the NCC from consumers across the four major networks indicate that terms featuring bonuses or promotional elements should be classified strictly as promotions stressing that telecoms operators should remove every tariff that has an element of promotion in it and must have the promotional element removed.
Adinde explained that the Consumer Affairs Bureau on its own part has been doing impact assessment on promotions by the telecoms operators, and after the assessment, the report is send to the Technical Standards and Records Department where it further subjects the promotion to an assessment in terms of its impact on the network.
He maintained that study of the NCC showed that promotions will result to a certain kind of performance that will degrade the quality of the network, saying “they will usually recommend a decline to approval for such promotions. But if they see from the assessment that the promotions are not giving the network issues, it can be can sustain during the a period, usually promotions last for three months, six months, some of them one year.”
He further said that data available to the Commission revealed that “consumers have different levels of experience in the industry and that at the first level, which is what consumers complain to the operators. Operators are not able to resolve the complaints” adding what the NCC has done is to focus on the consumer, by “understanding that really, without the consumer, this sector will not thrive.”
