NCC introduces nationwide roaming to allow efficient telecom providers

The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has launched a greater deal for cell phone customers within the nation to unravel the issue of poor community protection by service suppliers in some areas.

The NCC stated it’s addressing the difficulty by way of National Roaming.

The NCC has simply launched the National Roaming Guidelines which can assist a buyer of service supplier A who strikes to a location inside the nation the place solely the community of service supplier B is on the market to mechanically hook up with the accessible service supplier.

Hitherto, solely those who journey in a foreign country have been benefitting from worldwide roaming service, which permits them to make and obtain calls on international networks by way of their sim playing cards.

Under the rules, NCC stated “duly authorised service providers shall request and negotiate National Roaming Agreements with each other on bi-lateral and non-discriminatory terms, ” and the regulator has mounted the period of any nationwide roaming settlement between service suppliers at three years, renewable for an additional three years.

NCC stated it issued the rule in train of the powers conferred upon it by Section 70 of the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 and different enabling powers.

The Commission stated a roaming seeker requesting for National Roaming providers shall ahead a duly accomplished Roaming Request Form A contained below Schedule1 of those Guidelines to the Roaming Provider and the roaming supplier shall inside 15 days of receipt of the roaming request notify the roaming seeker of its acceptance by finishing the related part of the Response to Roaming Request Form B contained below Schedule 1 of the Guidelines.

NCC identified that “Where the roaming seeker receives no response from the roaming provider within 15 days of its request, the roaming seeker shall immediately notify the commission in writing, and the commission shall take necessary steps to ensure the roaming provider responds to the roaming request.”

The pointers offered another security nets to forestall undue company bully and arm-twisting among the many service suppliers.

These are that:

Parties shall thereafter enter right into a Non-Disclosure Agreement and begin negotiations of the phrases of the National Roaming Agreement.

Parties shall conclude negotiations on the phrases of the National Roaming Agreement and execute identical inside 60 days from receipt of the Roaming Request.

Parties shall be certain that the National Roaming Agreement is submitted to the Commission for assessment and approval, previous to registration, inside 14 days of execution by events.

If inside 15 days from the date of submission the Commission doesn’t act on the National Roaming Agreement, such shall be deemed authorized and registered.

The launch of the rules adopted a profitable trial carried out final yr. As a part of preparations to launch into the nationwide roaming period, the NCC had final yr authorized a trial of the system for 2 cell community operators, MTN and 9mobile.

With the approval, the 2 operators configured their networks for check and simulation for buyer expertise. The trial approval, in keeping with the NCC, lined a number of native governments, designated because the National Roaming geographic space in Ondo State.

Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and CEO of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, stated the first goal of the National Roaming Service trial was to encourage community useful resource sharing amongst operators. He stated this may result in operational expenditure (OPEX) optimisation and capital expenditure (CAPEX) efficiencies resulting in liberating up of sources to develop cell community protection to unserved and underserved communities throughout the nation, which can result in improved Quality of Service (QoS) supply to subscribers.

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NCC introduces national roaming to enable effective telecom services