The Nigerian Communicat-ions Commission (NCC) has imposed a blanket ban on sales promotion by all GSM operators, citing results of its latest quality of service (QoS) test carried out across the sector as reason.
It is a season of imposition of bans in the nation�s technology sector as the Federal Government had on Wednes-day announced plans to ban the importation of used computers into the country.
With the new directive, the regulator said all GSM operators had fallen below the QoS threshold set for all players including Glo mobile which was the sole player allowed to undertake an ongoing promotion that kicked off in the last quarter of last year.
In a statement obtained by Technology Times yesterday, the commission�s Head of Public Affairs, Dave Imoko, said the new GSM QoS testing equipment just acquired by the telecoms regulator had shown that all GSM sector players had allegedly run foul of the minimum threshold set.
He said they “were grossly in default on several key performance indicators for ascertaining quality of service.”
Imoko said following the new revelations, a fresh blanket ban had been imposed barring GSM operators from sales promotions that might add more subscribers to their congested networks.
“This directive affects ongoing promotions, or any new promotions yet to be embarked upon by any of the operators as the results of the tests carried out in some parts of the country has been very unsatisfactory”, he said.
According to him, “the level of performance of the GSM networks in some parts of the country where tests were already completed was poor and unacceptable.
“All the major GSM operators were grossly in default on several key performance indicators for ascertaining quality of service.”
He said the GSM operators were tested based on key parameters of traffic channel congestion, call completion rates, call setup success rates, call drop rates, percentage of failed calls, call setup time, speech quality index and handover success rates.
Imoko said NCC’s technical team recently carried out QoS tests in Kano, Bauchi and Kaduna States.
He said some members of the Senate Committee on Communications witnessed the test being carried out by a technical team of the NCC in Bauchi State.
He said GSM operators were expected to attain or exceed threshold performance levels for the set key indicators with respect to what the Commission had benchmarked for each parameter.
“As part of its strategy in 2008 to tackle the issue of quality of service from consumers’ perspective, the Commission has fully deployed its newly acquired GSM Quality of Service Test Equipment to regularly monitor the performance of the operators in all states of the Federation. The test will enable the Commission measure the various performance levels of the operators for each month as it sets to implement the payment of compensation to subscribers affected by poor quality of service from any of the operators,” the NCC spokesperson said.
He said the details of the test results obtained would soon be published to inform subscribers of the individual network performances of operators.
The ban is coming just as the Minister of Information and Communication, Mr. John Odey, on Wednesday announced the decision of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to restrict the importation of “unserviceable computers and electrical/electronic equipment into the country; to be effected through tariff regime.”
According to the minister, the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Urban Development brought before the Council a memorandum seeking approval for the restriction of importation of unserviceable substandard electrical/electronic appliances, otherwise known as e-wastes into Nigeria, and the National Policy on Environmentally Sound Management of e-wastes in the country.
Odey noted that though information and communication technology (ICT) has brought phenomenal growth in technology, technologies are changing daily and this has led to rapid product obsolescence, generation and accumulation of wastes resulting from discarded obsolete electronic products.
He observed that the importation had currently constituted very serious environmental nuisance and health hazards to the society.
According to him, Nigeria in her obligation to providing a quality environment fit for the wellbeing of the general populace had ratified some important multi-lateral environmental agreements including the Basel Convention on the control and trans-boundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal.
Odey said the Council had, however, noted that the restriction on importation of unserviceable computers and electrical/electronic equipment into the country would lead to reduction in the pollution of the country�s urban air quality, surface and ground water resources by pollutants from the burning of waste and disposal of wastes into river/water bodies. It is expected to eliminate associated environmental-related health hazards and diseases such as cancer, bronchitis, skin rashes and eye irritation.
Feb82008