THE Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has called for compensation to its members for loses they incurred from the activities of insurgents in the North Eastern part of the country.

The Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo, at a press briefing in Lagos, decried the continuous vandalism and closure of operators’ base stations, which he said was impacting negatively on quality of service (QoS) delivery by operators.

Adebayo urged the Federal Government to aid the development of ICT in the country by also investing critically in the sector
According to him, “It is sad that nobody is talking about the service providers that lost several millions of naira to destruction of their infrastructure.  The government should compensate the service providers as without that, may not want to go back and repair the damaged sites in the affected states.  Effort is being made to meet with relevant authorities for resolution.
“Unfortunately, our regulator has not taken enough responsibility of the problems in the industry, rather, allowing operators to face these problems alone,”

We discovered that despite the penalties and sanctions the issue of quality of service is still the same.  We operate one network in all networks.  If one operator’s site is down it affect all because of the interconnection agreement between them”, he stressed.

Speaking on QoS, the ALTON boss noted that there are factors responsible for the down turn in service quality. He stressed that until government and the regulator do something about them “we shall continue to have issues in terms of improving service delivery.  The issue must be addressed by the government.  There is no reason why a state would charge for Right of Ways, as benefit derives by states from telecommunications services is higher than the charges slammed on operators.”

He further explained that cost of securing ‘right of way’ for network rollout accounts for 60 per cent of the total cost outlay.
“It has become part of our citizenship in terms of access. We have been able to provide uninterrupted telecommunication access in the country in spite of the various challenges, as such we deserve praises. Telecommunications is driving success of other sectors of the economy such as banking among others. The time has come for Nigerians to appreciate telecommunication operators,” he stated.