The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has taken its “Know your Rights and Obligations as Telecoms Consumer” campaign to Garki Market in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The campaign is targeted at educating telecoms consumers on their rights as they subscribe to various networks and their obligations to those telecommunications networks.
The Director, Consumers Affairs Bureau of the NCC, Mr Efosa Idehen while speaking with journalists at the campaign in Garki Market, said consumers were educated on their rights, and on the importance of linking their National Identity Number (NIN) to their SIM and many more.
“We educated consumers on their rights, we also spoke about linking your SIM to your NIN because that is the new government policy so that it will help us understand and get to curb some of the security challenges that we have and the child online protection, those are the three things we worked on today.
“We answered several questions and we have asked the consumers who are in the market here, who still have issues, we have given them the complaint form for them to send in those information to us,” he said.
Educating the consumers on unsolicited messages, Idehen said sometimes such communications do not offer opt-in/opt-out option for telecom subscribers.
He said in order to protect subscribers from receiving unsolicited messages, the NCC in April 2016, directed all Mobile Network Operators to dedicate a short code 2442 to enable subscribers to make informed but independent decisions on what messages they wish to receive from the networks.
He explained that to activate the Do-Not-Disturb (DND) consumers should “Text “STOP” to 2442 to stop all unsolicited messages.
“There is also partial DND which allows the customer to select the type of communication they wish to receive.”
On Emergency Communication Centre (ECC), he said the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the establishment of the National Emergency Communications Agency to set up an Emergency Communications System for Nigeria.
Idehen said the NCC in line with International best practices launched a number of Emergency Communication Centers (ECC) across the country.
This is part of the Commissions mandate to promote and enhance public safety through the use of a particular number which shall be designated as the Universal Safety and Emergency Assistance Number for Telephone Services generally. So far, there are Nineteen (19) active Emergency Communication Centers (ECC) across the country.
On some of the obligations of consumers telecoms services, he said “consumers must be bound by operator’s terms of service on return of the signed service agreement, or on clearly accepting the service terms.
“Consumers must grant the operator of its authorized representative, without charge, access to premises, equipment or facilities as reasonably for any provisioning or maintenance of the services, equipment or facilities.
“Equipment owned by the operator and connected to a telecommunications network must not be moved to a location or address order than the operator.
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