The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has vowed to resolve complaints by subscribers regarding the unethical practices by providers of Value Added Services (VAS) in the Nigerian telecommunications industry.
These issues range from unauthorised subscriptions to illegal deductions from subscribers’ accounts.
At an engagement/engagement session held recently to address the issue, Head, Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement (HCME), Efosa Idehen, said the commission is out to tackle the complaints.
“Our objective is to present our findings and views on the host of issues identified during our monitoring exercises pursuant to the formulation of an industry-driven regulatory frame work on value added service provisions in the country. We will present our findings against international best practices, listen to your reactions and agree what should be the best regulatory framework for value added services in Nigeria going forward.
“Indeed the participatory regulation has become entrenched in our corporate culture in NCC as a means of soliciting industry response to a host of issues. This is with a view to ensuring that whatever policies and regulations they come up with, enjoy wide acceptance within the industry.’’
Shortly after his speech, the keynote address was delivered by Dr Okechukwu Itanyi, who represented Dr Eugene Juwah, Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NCC.
Juwah said “Our industry in the last 12years has witnessed tremendous growth. You will recall that at the beginning of the telecommunication revolution in Nigeria, we had a meagre 1.57 million mobile subscribers in 2002 but today the subscriber population has increased to more than 130million.
According to industry experts, mobile value added service is currently worth over 8200 million annually with huge potential to accelerate to 500million in the next few years.”
It was gathered that the commission has received what could be described as an avalanche of complaints from Nigerian subscribers regarding forceful activation of various value added services by service providers without explicit consent. Worse still, these services are auto-renewed resulting to perpetual lock-in of subscribers by the VAS providers.
There are also cases where a subscriber sends a code for opting out, receives a text indicating a successful opting out process but realises he/she had been charged yet again and this is unethical to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Concerning the standardisation of short codes, the president of Wireless Application service, Simon Ademilola said “mobility of subscribers can enhance the standardisation of short codes because VAS provision impacts heavily on subscriber’s experience.
