Business
Nigeria regulator demands better phone service from mobile opertors
Nigerian regulators have threatened to fine and stop three telecommunications companies from signing up new cellular phone subscribers over complaints about poor service in a nation reliant on mobile calls, officials said Thursday.
Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India, local firm Globacom Ltd. and South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd. all face a deadline at the end of November to improve their service, said Reuben Muoka, a spokesman for the Nigerian Communications Commission. Otherwise, they will be liable for fines and halted from expanding their customer base, Muoka said.
The firms will be judged on users being able to make and complete calls, as well as the quality of the calls, Muoka said. Mobile phone users in Nigeria often juggle several phones with different carriers to make sure they can make calls due to the poor conditions.
Muoka said the commission already has equipment in place to monitor performance by the companies.
“It’s not really a warning,” Muoka told The Associated Press. “It is an ultimatum because within the specified period, the law comes into force and stands.”
MTN gave public notice of the deadline in its third quarter results released Thursday. Long the dominant provider in Nigeria, the company said it now has 41.1 million subscribers in the nation after 10 years of doing business there.
