Consumer Burden: Tinubu abolishes 5% telecoms tax

President Bola Tinubu has permanently abolished the 5% excise duty on telecommunications services. Industry watchers say the levy had faced strong opposition from industry operators and consumer groups. The announcement was made on Tuesday in Abuja by the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Aminu Maida, during a media briefing. “The 5 percent excise duty is no longer in effect,” Maida said. “It was initially suspended, but the President has now completely removed it. I was present when the issue was raised, and he firmly said, ‘No, we cannot place this burden on Nigerians.’” The tax, which applied to mobile voice and data services, was first suspended in July 2023 as part of Tinubu’s fiscal reforms to ease multiple taxation on businesses and households. However, it resurfaced in late 2024 when the National Assembly proposed reinstating it as part of revenue measures. Industry stakeholders, including the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), had warned that the levy would drive up the cost of digital access, strain operators already battling high operational expenses, and slow Nigeria’s digital growth. With the President’s directive now backed by law, the excise duty has been fully scrapped, a move expected to provide relief for consumers and support growth in the telecom sector, which is central to Nigeria’s digital economy.

NCC approves 50% tariff hike for Telcos  

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has approved a limited increase in telecommunication tariffs for network operators.  The decision was made after engaging with stakeholders to address the rising costs of operations while maintaining consumer interests.   The adjustment, capped at a 50% maximum increase, is lower than the requests made by some operators.  The aim is to enable operators to manage operational expenses, invest in infrastructure, and improve service quality.   Telecom tariffs in Nigeria have remained unchanged since 2013, despite economic challenges such as inflation and the depreciation of the Naira.  This has strained operators like MTN Nigeria and Airtel, which have reported significant financial losses due to escalating costs and regulatory restrictions on tariff changes.   To protect consumers, the NCC has directed operators to implement the adjustments fairly and transparently.  They are also required to inform the public about the new rates and ensure measurable improvements in service delivery.   The Commission assured Nigerians that it remains committed to creating a balanced environment where consumer protection, industry sustainability, and sector growth are prioritized.

Telcos Mull Legal Action Against Banks Over N130bn USSD Debt

The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), has said that it may take legal action against banks in order to recover their unpaid N130 billion Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). The National Chairman of the telecom operators’ umbrella group (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, said ALTON has decided to take the option of legal battle as the last resort, after several failed attempts to amicably resolve the indebtedness matter. He explained the issue of unpaid USSD debt was part of the association’s submission to the new Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, when the ALTON’s team paid a courtesy visit to him last week in Abuja According to him, the minister expressed his concern over the lingering issue of unpaid USSD debt and advised telecom operators to have an independent Think-Tank that would look at the issues surrounding telecoms operations in Nigeria and develop empirical data that would best explain the economic implications of the challenges. The ALTON President said: “The issue of USSD debt was discussed with the Minister, and he was quite concerned and worried that the matter has lingered for too long unresolved. “Since the matter has dragged for too long, the best bet is to withdraw the USSD service from the banks and challenge them to pay for the accumulated debt that has reached N130 billion as at September this year. To get this done, we are contemplating at going to court to resolve the matter. “The issue has lingered for too long and debt accumulated, and I think it’s time to go to court to address the issue. We are thinking so because every effort made by telcos and the government to make the banks pay their debt, has not yielded positive result. It has been like taking two steps forward and taking one step backward”, Adebayo added. He said telecom operators have a commercial service agreement with the banks several to provide them with the USSD service that would enable seamless financial transactions like money transfers through the mobile phones, lamenting that despite the agreement, the banks have refused to obey the terms of the agreement, which had provisions for third party intervention, that include legal action. “The agreement permits parties to go to anywhere, including law court to resolve issues. So instead of the continuous meetings that have not yielded results, we are contemplating taking the next line of action, which is to go to court,” he said.

Despite Challenges Telcos Meeting KPIs—NCC

The latest data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) shows that the four mobile network operators, MTN, Globacom, Airtel, and 9mobile, are meeting their Quality of Service (QoS) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). According to the Nationwide QoS data released by the Commission, the telcos met their KPIs between July 2022 and June 2023. The operators’ performances are measured by the regulator based on parameters such as Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), Drop Call Rate (DCR), and Traffic Channel Congestion (TCH CONG). According to NCC, these QoS standards ensure that consumers continue to have access to high-quality telecommunications services by setting basic minimum quality levels for all operators. Based on the latest report, all the mobile operators crossed the threshold of 98 per cent call setup success rate in the 12-month review period. The Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR) is calculated by taking the number of unblocked call attempts divided by the total number of call attempts. In terms of drop call rate (DCR), which is fixed at 1 per cent or less, all the operators performed well as they recorded less than 1 per cent drop calls in the period, according to NCC’s record. A dropped call is a call that is prematurely terminated before being released normally by either the caller or the called party. In terms of Traffic Channel Congestion, (Standalone Dedicated Control Channel Congestion SDCCH), all the operators also met the KPI as they all recorded less than 2 per cent congestion within the period. The regulator’s parameter in this regard is that the congestion rate for the networks should be equal to or less than 2 per cent. The Traffic Control Channel Congestion Rate is the probability of failure to access a traffic channel during call setup. The technical result of operators’ quality of service may, however, be different from the reality based on subscribers’ experience in the period covered by the report and even now. The President of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS), Mr. Deolu Ogunbajo disagreed with the regulator. According to him, NCC is looking at the quality of service from the technical aspect and not from the subscribers’ angle. “The KPIs are measured technically and are far from the reality of what the subscribers are experiencing. We disagree with NCC on this. There are lots of complaints on Dropped calls, and even the call setup success rate is nothing to write home about. “There are times you want to call and the call is not just connecting, the call setup rate is poor, all is not well in terms of quality of service as the report suggests” he said. Based on the huge number of mobile subscriptions in the country, the minute percentage of errors allowed the operators to cover a large number of subscribers facing the quality of service challenge.

Telcos rake in N3.33trn revenue from data, other services —NCC

MTN Nigeria, Airtel, Glo, and other telecom operators made a whopping N3.33 trillion as revenue from calls, data, SMS, and other telecom services in 2022, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said in its 2022 Subscriber/Network Data Annual Report. According to the commission, the total number of active subscribers increased from 195,463,898 subscriptions in 2021 to 222,571,568 active voice subscriptions as of December 2022, a 13.86 percent year-on-year increase. “The increase in the Operators’ subscriber base was attributed to a number of reasons which includes subscriber loyalty, promos, seasonal effects, aggressive consumer acquisition drive, and competitive product offerings across all the networks,” the commission said. It noted that the growth in active subscriptions impacted positively on other derived telecom indicators such as teledensity, Internet penetration as well as broadband penetration. Data usage also continued its surge in 2022. It increased by 46.77 per cent to 518,381.78TB as of the end of the year. The NCC stated, “There was an increase in the volume of data consumed at the year-end December 2022 when compared with the year-end December 2021. The total volume of data consumed by subscribers increased to 518,381.78TB as of December 2022 from 353,118.89TB as of December 2021, representing an increase of 46.77 per cent in data consumption within the period,” the report said.

Inactive lines will be lost after one year, NCC warns subscribers

New guidelines proposed by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) will see telephone subscribers lose their lines if it is inactive for one year. The guidelines, which were published by the Commission, are part of efforts by the NCC to improve service delivery by telecommunications companies (telcos). The commission said, “Subscribers may lose their numbers within a year if they do not use it”. “A subscriber’s line may be deactivated if it has not been used within six months, for a Revenue Generating Event (RGE), and If the situation persists for another six months, the subscriber may lose their number, except for a network-related fault inhibiting an RGE.” “Deduction of line rental charge is regarded by RGE,” it said.   To recover their lines, the Commission said subscribers must provide “proof of good reason for absence and is at liberty to request for line parking.” The commission said the publication was in accordance with section 57 of the NCC Act to allow stakeholders to make contributions to the policy. The new NCC guidelines, titled, ‘Draft Quality of Service Business Rules’, stipulate the minimum quality and standards of service, associated measurements, and key performance indicators for measuring the quality of service. According to the document, telcos are to attend to customers within 30 minutes upon arrival at any of their service centres across the country. “For customer care centres, waiting time to be physically attended to by relevant staff at customer care centres is 30 minutes. The licensee shall provide means of measuring the waiting time, starting from the time of arrival at the premises,” the document reads. The commission also said telcos must ensure that customers can speak to a customer care representative within five minutes when they call a telco’s helpline. “Lines should not be more than three times; maximum number of rings before a call is answered by either an IVR machine or a live agent should not be more than five; and where a customer decides to speak to a live agent, the maximum duration allowable on the queue/IVR should be 5 minutes before answer,” NCC said. “In exceptional cases where a live agent may be unavailable within five minutes to answer the call, a customer should be given an option to hang up to be called back within a maximum time of 30 minutes. “Customer care lines that can be accessed through 21 free access numbers and if 1 number then it should accommodate multiple other network calls at the same time.” On credit alert while on call, telcos are expected to send “a single short-beep to the call initiator 2 minutes, and at 30 seconds to termination of the ongoing call”.  It added that “low credit announcement to be played while the call is being originated in a situation where the call cannot last up to 30 seconds.”