Telephone subscribers have applauded the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on its latest directive to telecom operators on compensation over poor quality of service (QoS) but demanded that telcos should be made to pay back 100 per cent.

Under the aegis of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMs), the President, Chief Deolu Ogunbanjo, described the move as a ‘long-overdue victory’ for the Nigerian consumer and 100 per cent compensation for affected subscribers. He called for Compensation Framework.

The NCC directive may benefit about 182 million active telephone users in the country who have longed for quality of experience (QoE).

The regulator’s directive, which requires operators to credit affected users with airtime based on their average spending and location-specific outages, marks a departure from the historical practice where regulatory fines were paid to the Federal Government.

“For years, we have agitated that fines should follow the victim, not just the treasury,” Ogunbanjo stated.

“The subscriber is the one who suffers the dropped call and the lost data. By mandating direct airtime credits, the NCC is finally putting the ‘consumer as king’ philosophy into practice,” he said.

Ogunbanjo, who called for 100 per cent compensation for either data or voice services that fail, stressed the importance of clarity of process.

“While we appreciate NCC on the directive, there must be a process, which is what we currently don’t know. The regulator should be clearer on how subscribers can seek redress that will lead to compensation. For instance, if you want to port from one network to another, there are processes. So, we need to know how to register or complain, then it will be attended to by the operators.

According to him, compensation should not be one-off stuff, “But rather, a continuous thing! Operators have already gotten a 50 per cent tariff hike since last year and the promise of improved service thereafter has not been met. They have made a huge profit without a commensurate impact on the quality of experience since the hike.

“So, it is the turn of the subscribers to be compensated. They must do the needful as fast as possible.”

NATCOMs noted that the new framework, which uses Local Government Area (LGA) monitoring to trigger compensation, is a significant technical upgrade. However, the association warned that “the devil is in the enforcement.”

“We want to see the automated alerts. We want the subscribers to see the ‘Reason for Credit’ SMS on their phones without having to lodge a formal complaint,” Ogunbanjo added.

The association also commented on the Joint NCC-CBN Refund Framework, which officially hit its one-month milestone today. The policy, which guarantees a 30-second refund for failed airtime and data purchases, has reportedly seen over ₦10 billion returned to Nigerians in its first period of operation.

NATCOMs urged the commission to remain vigilant against systemic glitches that operators might use as excuses.

“The 30-second rule is the benchmark for trust in our digital economy. If the banks and telcos can debit us in seconds, they must refund us in seconds,” the NATCOMs boss emphasised.

On its part, the Association of Telephone, Cable Tv and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCIS-Nigeria), agreed that the QoS remained a challenge to the industry.

President, ATCIS-Nigeria, Sina Bilesanmi, said: “We welcome the development because our members deserve a good value for their cash. But we don’t know how the NCC wants to enforce the order because under the leadership of Ernest Ndukwe, MTN and Celtel (now Airtel) to pay compensation to all active subscribers on their networks as of January 31, 2008, as a penalty for persistent poor service quality. Despite legal challenges from the operators, he maintained that they must take responsibility for service failures.”