Lagos - Regulators in Nigeria have fined four mobile phone
carriers a total of $7.3m over poor service in a nation that depends on
cellular phones for communications, a spokesperson said.
The Nigeria Communications Commission's penalties hit Bharti
Airtel Limited of India, Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat, local firm Globacom Limited.
and South Africa-based MTN Group Limited, some of the dominant carriers in
Africa's most populous nation. Etisalat and MTN must pay $2.25m apiece, while
Airtel faces a penalty of $1.68m and Globacom faces a $1.125m fine, said Reuben
Muoka, a commission spokesperson, on Sunday.
The fines come for poor service, dropped calls and bad line
quality in March and April, Muoka said. The commission issued a statement
Saturday saying that they decided to allow January and February to be a grace
period for the companies to improve their services. In October, the communications commission warned
carriers it would begin fining them for poor service. "The current penalties signal a new regime of
quality of service management in the Nigerian telecommunications
industry," the commission said. The companies have until 21 May to pay the regulators or they will face
further penalties. MTN, long the
dominant provider in Nigeria, has 41.1 million subscribers in the nation after
10 years of doing business there. MTN did not immediately respond to requests
for comment. Etisalat said in a
statement it is committed to delivering quality service to more than 12 million
subscribers in Nigeria, and expects to spend more than half a billion dollars
on upgrading its network this year.
Explosive growth
The CEO of Etisalat's Nigeria division, Steven Evans, blamed
"the failure to hit some of the quality measures" in part on industry
wide difficulties including a lack of reliable power, accidental damage to
transmission lines and occasional sabotage.
"These factors are unique to the operating environment
in Nigeria and pose a tough challenge for operators to deliver quality of
service levels equal to that of other countries," Evans said. "What
we would like to see is the declaration of the telecommunications industry as
critical national infrastructure which would afford the industry and its
facilities greater protection."
Emeka Oparah, a spokesperson for Airtel in Nigeria, declined
to comment. Officials with Globacom could not be reached on Sunday.
Nigeria, long troubled by pothole-littered roads and little
electricity, has relied on mobile phones since the government granted the
public access to them about a decade ago. Landlines are almost nonexistent, as
the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to sell it
to a private company have failed. However, carrier service is often so poor
that those who can afford it carry multiple phones with different providers to
be able to make calls.
The ultimatum by the commission comes as Nigeria, home to 160
million people, continues its explosive growth, making it a lucrative market
for mobile phone service providers. The arrival of Airtel sparked a price war
in the market, with local phone calls now down to pennies a minute.
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