The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has called on African telecommunications regulators to strengthen collaboration and embrace evidence-based decision-making to improve regulation, protect consumers and support the continent’s rapidly evolving digital economy.

The commission said better use of data, market intelligence and shared regulatory experience would enable African countries to respond more effectively to emerging technologies, attract investment and build more resilient communications infrastructure.

The call was made yesterday at the Heads of Regulators Roundtable hosted by the NCC on the sidelines of the ongoing African Telecommunications Union (ATU) Conference of Plenipotentiaries in Abuja.

Speaking at the event, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, said although African regulators operate under different legal frameworks and oversee markets of varying sizes, they continue to confront remarkably similar challenges.

He noted that conversations among regulators often shift quickly from routine exchanges to discussions on infrastructure resilience, cybersecurity, satellite services, affordability, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

According to him, many of the regulatory problems confronting one country have already been addressed elsewhere on the continent, making collaboration more important than ever.

“Very often the challenge one regulator is trying to solve has already been encountered in one form or another by a colleague elsewhere on the continent,” Maida said.

He said the roundtable, with the theme “Building Africa’s Network Intelligence Ecosystem for Evidence-Based Regulation,” was designed to encourage practical collaboration among regulators and promote informed policy decisions.

“It gives us an opportunity to consider how better use of data, evidence and market intelligence can strengthen regulatory decisions and how African regulators can learn more systematically from one another,” he added.

Maida said the NCC would share Nigeria’s experience while encouraging regulators to openly discuss successful initiatives, lessons from failed approaches and areas where greater cooperation could help avoid duplicating efforts.

Also speaking, the Executive Commissioner for Stakeholder Management at the NCC, Rimini Makama, said the rapid expansion of broadband, satellite services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital public infrastructure had made traditional regulatory models inadequate.

He stressed that while regulators now possess unprecedented volumes of technical, market and consumer data, the real challenge is transforming that information into sound regulatory decisions.

“The old regulatory approaches were built for a simpler time. They are no longer enough. To stay ahead of the problems and not just react to them, we need trusted intelligence,” Makama said.

He explained that the NCC had developed a regulatory intelligence ecosystem that integrates quality of service and quality of experience data, consumer complaints, compliance analytics and market intelligence into a single platform to support evidence-based regulation.

According to him, participants at the roundtable were also invited to share their experiences on ensuring data accuracy, using advanced analytics, improving regulatory data sharing and measuring consumers’ actual experiences beyond conventional quality-of-service indicators.

The Director-General of the Regional Africa Satellite Communications Organisation, Timothy Ashong, described the forum as an important opportunity for African telecommunications stakeholders to exchange best practices and strengthen the continent’s regulatory environment.

He commended Nigeria’s deployment of technology that enables regulators, operators and consumers to monitor fibre cuts and network disruptions in real time, describing it as a model other African countries should emulate.

“This is what we believe every African country needs to emulate,” Ashong said, noting that the system enhances transparency and enables quicker responses to service disruptions.

Ashong also urged African countries to diversify their connectivity infrastructure by investing in both terrestrial fibre and satellite communications instead of relying on a single connectivity platform.

According to him, satellite technology offers a practical solution for extending connectivity to remote and border communities that are difficult to reach through terrestrial networks alone.

He pledged the organisation’s support for closer collaboration with regulators across the continent to strengthen Africa’s satellite ecosystem, improve cross-border connectivity and bridge the continent’s digital divide.

The Heads of Regulators Roundtable formed part of activities at the ongoing ATU Conference of Plenipotentiaries, bringing together telecommunications regulators and industry leaders to explore practical strategies for building a more collaborative, transparent and data-driven regulatory ecosystem across Africa.