FG charges telecom operators on drop call, call masking

THE Federal Government has charged telecommunication operators and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to stop call masking and investigate how it originates.

Minister of Communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, gave this charge in his office during a meeting with the telecom service providers over increasing rate of dropped calls being experienced by consumers and other unwholesome practices.

The charge came as a result of correspondence the minister received from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) and the Clerk to the National Assembly on the Senate resolutions on the issues of increased rate of dropped calls and other unwholesome practices such as call masking by telecommunication network providers in Nigeria.

Shittu, enjoined NCC to investigate and invoke appropriate provisions of the law and other extant agreements to protect consumers and to refund them henceforth for disrupted calls caused by network issues and allow them have more control over their usage of data bundle as practised by telecom operators in countries like Kenya, South Africa.

He urged NCC, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and other regulatory agencies to carry out effective supervision of the telecom service providers to ensure regulatory excellence, operational efficiency and sterling service delivery and also to investigate the causes of the dropped calls, call masking and to ensure that all international calls were terminated in Nigeria with the phone number of actual caller.

The Network Service Providers in their response, outlined some of the causes of the dropped calls to include some buildings lacking In-building Solutions (IBS) for accessibility of calls; where a building like Federal Secretariat Complex has no in-building solutions that would make calls to be difficult. Others are high rising buildings that overshadow other buildings. Fibre Optic Links tampering, separation of domestic rates from international calls amongst others.