NATCOMS Demands Land Lines, Compensations from Comms. Minister

NATIONAL Association of Telecom Subscribers (NATCOMS) this week tabled its list of demands before Mr. Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications including a charge to restore land lines which have been ran out by global system for mobile communications (GSM).

According to the group, the restoration of land lines must be a key policy focus of this administration, backed up by a lower level interconnect rates insisting that the current telecoms sector interconnect rates, does not encourage the use of land lines.

Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, president of NATCOMS, who spoke for the association, also called for drastic action against the lingering issue of unsolicited text messages that most of the time, lead to forced activations and regular unauthorized credit deductions.

Ogunbanjo urged the minister to immediately reduce the “current unrealistic and exploitative price cap of N50 per minute” adding that “Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been operating the N50 (Fifty Naira) Price Cap Regulation since 2001 to date”

Speaking on the issue of the merger of the NCC and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the NATCOMS president, tasked the minister to do the needful by actualizing the merger of the two bodies for the overall benefit of Nigerians.

“Putting it succinctly, the industry has remotely converged in view of the fact that, with your phone, you could make calls, watch videos and send messages, browse the internet, among others.

The new Minister, should without much ado, pursue the needful by making the golden difference and actualizing the merger of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) for the overall benefit of Nigerians” Ogunbanjo said.

The others are: “The issue of Poor Quality of Telecoms Services, with particular reference to the vexed issue of dropping / breaking calls; undelivered but paid for text messages; data services deductions / internet poor quality; unauthorized call credit deductions, all without adequate reward and compensation.